Nothing gets done without relationships. Building rapport with other people is one of the best things you can do to develop a relationship especially in the early stages of meeting someone. Below is a simple framework for structuring your conversations. It’s based on this article .
- Order an answer (ie: “So, tell me…”)
- Repeat it back – Confirm that you heard them and that what they have to say is important
- Question – Focus the interest on them with an open ended specific question.
- Follow On – Keep the conversation going. Use verbing to avoid getting stuck. (ie – Identify a verb in what they just said to you and build a question around it)
- Feelings – Bring in the feelings, “How did that feel?”
Here is another useful reference for building rapport with anyone you work with and Joe Polish’s Magic Rapport Formula.