How to Build Rapport with New Contacts

This is a Mood Setters article where we teach you how to get your prospective clients in the mood to be receptive to you. People are receptive to people they know. As much we all hate to admit it, most people are tribal. Their first instinct is to say “no” to people outside their tribe.

If you don’t know your prospect personally and you’re not already a brand, one way to set the mood is to reduce the degrees of separation between you and them. You can prevent the reflexive “no” by name-dropping. But when you’re name-dropping, it’s important not to look as if you’re trying too hard. You want to subtly work it in.

The Formula for Effective Name-Dropping

There’s a 2-step process for name dropping. First step: figure out what you have in common. Then, point it out as if it’s a secret handshake. 

NO INFLUENCE PEDDLING

Before we demonstrate how to name drop, let’s first make sure you don’t do the following because it is ineffective and potentially dangerous. Don’t name drop without context. For example, don’t mention that the mayor is your brother without context. It may sound as if you expect something for that. That appearance of impropriety might land you and your brother in a bit trouble.  

FIND COMMONALITY

Instead of name-dropping without context, look for something that you have in common. Do your research ahead of time instead of trying to elicit commonalities during the meeting. Remember, nothing should be cold. No cold calling; no form emails. 

Once you have a list of commonalities, rank them in order of the most exclusive to the least exclusive. For example, if you have the same alma mater, pledged the same fraternity, and were both White House Pages, focus on the WH Page commonality because there are so few members of that club. It doesn’t matter if you weren’t in the group at the same time or you didn’t pledge the same chapter. You can use the commonalities in inter-generational relationship building efforts.

What if you don’t have anything in common? Well, that’s not possible—you’re both humans. The point is there’s always something that can be spun into a commonality. For instance, what does an American female doctor have in common with a foreign-borne, ESOL (English as a second language), male, business owner who never attended college and makes his living importing bamboo materials from his native Brazilian rainforests. 

Nothing, right? Wrong! They are both business owners or entrepreneurs. A doctor’s office is a small business as is the bamboo import business. Each business likely has labor issues, collection issues, regulatory issues. They can connect around that! 

SECRET HANDSHAKE

Next, you want to refer to this commonality as if it’s the secret handshake, so to speak. Not as if you’re trying to make yourself sound important. 

Return now to the strong connection where you were both White House Pages. Here’s how to work that into the conversation without sounding like a jerk. Say something like, “Before we get started, my research tells me you were a White House Page during the Clinton Administration. I was a Page under Trump. I wonder if our experiences were similar.” Then, you’ll have this conversation about that unique commonality before you discuss how you can help each other going forward.

The weak connection also can be used as a secret handshake. Return now to the situation where you were both small business owners, the doctor and the importer. Here’s how to make that weak connection into a bond. Say something like, “Hey, I noticed you’re pretty staffed up here. I need to know what you’re doing because I’m having such a hard time finding the labor I need to grow my business.” That topic will give you 5 minutes or so of quality bonding. The prospect will be more open to doing business with you and you might get some staffing leads out of it, to boot. 

To summarize, you can build rapport with new contacts by finding a commonality in advance of the meeting and then using the commonality to establish yourself as an insider.