The Power of Building Rapport - Highlight reel

Hey, I'm Kwame Christian, and you are about to step into the world of Negotiate Anything, the number one negotiation podcast in the world, where we teach you how to make difficult conversations easier while getting more of what you want in the process. Each episode is packed with practical tips and strategies from the experts. We delve into negotiation, conflict resolution, and leadership skills that are crucial in both business and in life. Whether you're closing a deal, managing a team, or navigating personal relationships, Negotiate Anything provides you with the tools you need to succeed. Our conversations are real, relatable, and most importantly, rooted in practicality. So if you're ready to transform your conversations and elevate your negotiation skills, join me on Negotiate Anything. Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you love to listen. Let's make every conversation a winning negotiation. I'm excited to see where you go. So let's start off with Building rapport. Tell us a little bit more about that.

Well, you know, it occurs to me that you have to play to your strengths in anything that you do if right now Wimbledon is going on. And so I see these tennis players, if you're Roger Federer, you're about playing the points really quick, about putting the ball away, about advancing the net. And so similarly, as a negotiator, this isn't necessarily the tip for every single person. I do think there is definitely a universal truth in the value of building rapport. But for who I am and for people who may resemble me, I think that that is my go to strength. It's my secret weapon. And so the basic concept is this. It's that in order to negotiate well, you need to build rapport with the other side. This means finding commonality, finding common ground, having things to talk about, building that relationship, getting to that point where they like you and you like them. So the matter that is being negotiated is almost secondary to the relationship. That's at least at a very high level what I'm trying to accomplish when I try to build rapport.

I love your response for two reasons. Reason number one, I am a tennis junkie and I love the fact that you brought in the tennis analogy, which was spot on. And number two, I really like the fact that you recognize that based on your personality type, you use building rapport as a strategic tool, but you acknowledge that there are some people who do not have that personality, where building rapport comes easily to them. So for that person, what advice would you have for them in this area?

So I think anyone can still improve in this area. So Even though Roger Federer is great at ending the points quickly, he still also has to be a consistent tennis player. So even though he's not a defensive player who's just getting the ball back all the time, like a Novak Djokovic, for you tennis nerds out there, he still has to be able to be strong in that part of the game. And same thing with Novak Djokovic. He can't just be getting the ball in defensively all the time. He has to be good at putting the thing away too. So even if that's not your negotiation personality, you can still learn from this and I would still encourage you to do this. But I think knowing a little bit about yourself is important too. So if you tend to be more of the analytical type, maybe you're going to be the type to focus more on your negotiation arguments, your legitimate criteria. Coming up with brainstorms, creative options and building rapport is going to be more of a secondary thing for you. But I think it's an area that everyone can use that will improve the outcome of their negotiations.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think one of the things is when you start to develop that level of self awareness where you can see your personality type and the tendencies that you and the patterns of behavior that you bring to your negotiations, you can recognize what comes naturally and where you need to put some concentrated, focused effort. And if it's not something that you do well, it doesn't absolve you from the responsibility of actually building rapport. It's it just means that you need to be a lot more intentional about doing it. And so for people who are more analytical, maybe what you do is you have a systematic approach to rapport. You say, I'm going to ask these questions and I want to spend at least seven minutes before I introduce my arguments.

I think you're dead on on that as well. It's one of those things that people simply underestimate, especially amateur negotiators, is they think that the whole point is the negotiation, its the material itself. Some of my best negotiations have been the ones where for 99% of the time that we're talking to each other, we're talking about the Lakers, we're talking about Wimbledon, we're talking about stuff way on the periphery of the matter. Then finally we end with, oh shoot, we should probably deal with a little matter of this dispute or this contract or this deal or this whatever. By then the wheels are so greased that getting the agreement is a piece of cake. And that's just the last 1% of the negotiation. So I think if that's the structure of your negotiation where there is that much rapport building at the front, you can bet that the negotiation is simply going to go better. And it happens a lot in business.

And why do you think this is so powerful?

You know, my dad used to have a saying. I picked up a lot of sayings working with my dad over the years. But I noticed when I would go into sales calls with my dad, people would just love to see him. It was like a visit from Santa Claus. And people always tell me, your dad is so adorable. I love your dad, he's amazing. And so one day I was talking to my dad and he said, do you know why people buy from me? I said, why? And he said, because they like me. And from anybody else that would seem like such a self aggrandizing thing to say, but it was absolutely true. The reason why people bought from my dad was because they like him. I don't know if you've ever been in a purchasing situation, let's say going even to a retail store where you wanted to buy something, but the person that was going to sell it to you was so unappetizing that you're like, you know what, forget it, I'm not, I'm just not going to buy it from you. Even though you want the thing itself. Or times when you didn't even want the thing but the person was so nice, you're like, oh, okay, fine, I'll get it right. That happens to us in everyday life. So I think the reason why the rapport building is so powerful is that it is a big part of why people do deals with the people that they do. If they like you, they're more likely to make concessions to help you out and to give you what you want.

Do you want to get more of your favorite expert insights in a fraction of the time? Join Negotiate Anything Premium today. It's designed for busy listeners just like yourself. And Premium is everything that you love about our traditional feed just packaged to save you time and make it easier for you to apply our expert insights in your difficult conversations. There's no time to wait. Join our premium community now and get started on your journey towards earning more and negotiating for the life that you deserve. Make sure to start your 7 day free trial today. And when you think about connection as it relates to, let's say, the business world, what does connection look like when we're thinking about business types of relationships?

Yeah, this is a great question. Well, what I would love to invite us to all recognize is the fact that every interaction you have, whether it's in a business context with a coworker or a client or someone else, whether it's in your family, in your personal life, every single interaction has the potential to not just further your goals as, as an employee or as a leader, but also to actually improve your health and to improve their health. So the research shows that, for example, people who have strong relationships, who connect in a meaningful way, who feel supported, they live longer, they have a reduced risk of mortality. They also have strengthened immune systems. So people have a lower risk of things like heart disease and depression and dementia and stroke if they have meaningful connection. And so when we think about, in a business context, every conversation that we have is an opportunity for so much more than just achieving our goals. Right. It's part of living a fulfilling life and living a healthy life. And so I invite us all to think about the workplace and our business interactions as an opportunity for meaningful connection. Right. A lot of us make friends in the workplace or meet our romantic partners at a business event or things like that. It's. There's so much potential there for the connections that we're forming to serve a lot more than just our business goals. And I think that's an exciting and undertapped opportunity.

I agree 100%. Because when you think about this, there's a, obviously there's a skill to creating deeper connections, but then there's also a mindset challenge as well. Because if we're not going into this with that positive mindset, not just about the opportunity, but about this person in general, about the fact that there might be a business opportunity, but even deeper than that, I personally have an opportunity to really pour into you in a way that gives you health and life. That really elevates the sanctity of these conversations in our mind too.

Right.

And what are we living for? What are we working for? Right. If we're not bringing that mindset into our day to day, then that's a, that's an incredibly missed opportunity. We spend so much time working. Right. I think on average in the U.S. americans spend around 90,000 hours over the course of their lifetimes working. We often see coworkers or our boss or employees more regularly than we see our friends. Right. For a lot of us, that, that resonates. And so how can we make sure that those interactions and those relationships are positive and healthy and fueling that that bigger purpose for us?

This is so good. So good. And so now let's I hear a curmudgeony business person grumbling like, what is all of this heart centered stuff? How to make money, right? So let's talk to that person to just keep them engaged here. Now let's speak to the science behind this, because if we create deeper, more meaningful connections, then it makes it more likely for our negotiations, our difficult conversations to go well. A lot of times business deals move at the speed of trust. If there's more trust, the deals wouldn't get done. And so scientifically and psychologically, beneath the surface, what changes in the mind of somebody when there is meaningful connection that helps these difficult conversations to be a little bit easier?

Yeah. Well, so let's look at the workplace as an example. Right? So if you are an employee at an organization and you go into work every day and you feel really disconnected, you don't get along well with your co workers or the people who you are negotiating with. Right. Feel lonely, perhaps you don't feel like you belong. It's just a job that you have to do in order to pay the bills. The research shows that that takes a toll on the bottom line. So people who feel disconnected in the workplace are more likely to quit. So it's bad for retention. They're less productive and they're less happy, which makes them less motivated in that context. And there's research that shows that the toll this takes amounts to over $400 billion each year to the U.S. economy in lost productivity and missed work days. Right. So when people go into work and spend our lives working and are not feeling connected with each other, that is a serious problem for an organization's business and ability to be successful. Right. In contrast, people, when you go into work and you have positive relationships, you're more productive, you're more engaged. There was a study that found that people who have a best friend at work, so someone who they really trust and get along with well, are seven times more likely to be engaged, produce quality work, to be happy in their role. Right. So this is a measurable difference that we see in terms of the importance in a business context of making sure that people are cultivating positive relationships.

Hey listeners. As a lawyer, CEO, entrepreneur, husband and father, I know the pressures of trying to fit everything into a limited amount of time. And over the years, I've come up with a variety of hacks for continuing my personal and professional development journey while still handling business at work and at home. And now I'm ready to share some of those with you if you're looking to do the same. Join negotiate anything premium today. It's designed for busy listeners just like yourself. It's everything that you love about our traditional feed just packaged to save you time and make it easier for you to apply these expert insights in your difficult conversations. Not only will this save you time, but it will also make preparing for your difficult conversations that much easier. Just download a quick mini episode or takeaway guide and you're on your way to negotiating more of the best things in life. So what are you waiting for? Get started with your free trial today for you. What was that driving force to even have that genuine desire to connect with other people?

Good question, Kwame. It's probably deep seated within me because I'm the youngest and so my oldest brother is five years older than me. So that's a pretty healthy gap as far as like growing up. So like when he was in eighth grade, I was just a little third grader, right? But you want to play with your brother, you want to play with your friends. So if you're playing football and you get tackled or something like that and you get hurt, you can't let them know you're hurt because then you got to go up and mom won't let you play with them anymore. So you got to be tough, right? So I think that for me personally, some of that desire just came from being the youngest and almost like wanting to again have that be wanted to be accepted into the group. So that's probably where my personal personal drive comes from to have that desire. And I would say for others, if that's not their particular instance, what I tend to find is the valley is deeper than it is wide. From people who don't see eye to eye. It's typically like they share so many more things in common than they don't. It's just the things that they don't share in common are typically like high flashpoints. You know, like really emotional based things burst out of like factual based things. So that's kind of where I can see some of that massive divide. And again, some of that's generational, some of that's experiential. And once you start to see and if you have the ability to recognize or if you have the skillset to ask the questions to help start seeing how that valley again, it can be bridged because it's not so wide, it's so deep.

That is so profound. The valley is deeper than it is wide. I think that's, that's one of the most profound things that I've heard on this show that's so good because it makes a lot of sense. At the end of the day, we're all people. We want what's best for ourselves and what is best for our family. We're just trying our best, right, to make it through day to day. And we have different experiences, we have different backgrounds, we have different ages, whatever it happens to be. But at the end of the day we can still connect human to human and then we can build upon that connection and create a relationship. And when you're thinking about those times when you've connected with somebody who is different from you, whether it's age or race or gender or just community, different communities or different companies, what are those tools that you can use to bridge that gap?

So I think open ended questions are almost criminally underused in conversations like that. And you have to be intentional about your, how your deeper questions. Because if you're only going to ask close ended questions, your conversation can die really fast, which then it almost feels like again, fulfilling that prophecy. We have nothing in common. We don't. This is like talking to a wall type deal. So I think open ended questions are very important when you're trying to build some of that rapport. But at Carnegie we had what was called a conversation stack. So the idea was if you ask this series of questions, eventually you're going to land on something where the light starts flashing. So it would start with your name, then it would start with. And it's supposed to be visual in nature. So it's a nameplate falling out of the sky. Then it's a house landing on the nameplate. Then coming out of the house are children and family members. And those children and family members are wearing big work gloves and in their hands they're holding an airplane. And instead of propellers on the airplane, it's tennis rack. And all of those little aspects are conversation starters. So obviously the first one, nameplate, what's your name? That come from home? Where do you live? What's that like? What town is that in? Children, family, what's your family makeup, things of that nature, the work glove, what do you do? What keeps you busy? Airplane, where do you want to go? What's the travel? What's next on your agenda? And then finally, tennis rackets. What do you do in your free time? What's fun to you? So the idea is you go through that stack of questions and whatever you see that light up moment, whether it's their family, whether it's work, whatever, you stay there, stay there, camp there, get as much emotional investment from that person at that time. And then everything else flows the same.

That's incredible. I've never heard that before. And I love the use of the mnemonic too. Right. The, the visual representation because that's how you remember things. And the wackier and sillier, the better. Little fun fact. I don't know if I've said this on the podcast, but that's how I used. That's how I did the TED talk. I memorized the whole TED talk. We're using the mind palace technique and the most ridiculous images connecting them. So it looks like I'm looking into the audience, but I'm looking at the most absurd things in my mind's eye. So I can see how this could be really helpful in the flow of a conversation. And it makes so much sense because just again, human to human, we're touching on some of those key elements.

Who are you?

Where are you from? That's an integral part of who you are. Do you have a family? Tell me about that. Your friends, family, those type of things. Your social circle and where do you work? Big. Right. And then what you do in your free time. Incredible. Incredible. And you're right. And again, it sounds like we're following the energy. There's going to be a lot more energy given to one thing versus the other. Like, what's giving them the energy? One day it might be their family, the other day, you know, their family might be annoying them. And so it's going to be their hobbies. But it gives you an opportunity to flow, find that passion, find that energy, and then connect in a really meaningful way.

Absolutely. And truth be told, we don't have to meet and mingle and match with every single person we meet in the world. You know, it's impossible to put that level of connectivity on each individual interaction that you have. You know, some days, some people are just down. Maybe you're down that day and you don't really want to dive too far into it. And that's okay, because in all reality, unless you're at a conference or something like that, you're probably going to interact with this person, whether it's co worker, a member of your community, you're probably going to see them. So it's not to say that the conversation has to die right then and there. Some people are just a longer burned. You know, some people, it takes a little while to build that confidence or that trust. But what I've kind of found in those type of relationships where, you know, it's not an instant thaw. Those are the ones where you keep like almost purposefully going back with a little bit more, a little bit more. And then all of a sudden the floodgates open and it's everything you thought it would be on the front side. It just took a bit longer to get there.

Oh man, I love this. I love this, Brandon. This has been exceptional. I really appreciate this. And what I really, what I love about this is how practical it is and actionable too, because people can take these tools immediately and put it into action to connect with other people. So I appreciate you. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Now, before you sign off, I have something to tell you that I've never told you before. Just kidding. I've told you before, but you should listen to it again. I want you to know about Negotiate Anything Premium. Imagine all of the things that you love about our traditional feed, plus so much more. I know you like our traditional feedback feed because you're at the end of the episode. And with Negotiate Anything Premium, you'll get more bonus content you've been asking for, more of the expert insights that you can't get anywhere else, and more exclusive behind the scenes access into every conversation. Are you ready to get more of what you want out of your life, career and every conversation? With Negotiate Anything Premium, you'll have access to more high level, custom designed content and insights giving you the tools you need to negotiate higher salaries, better deals, and better relationships in your life and career. Once I had a listener share that Negotiate Anything helped her to negotiate a $53,000 raise. Could this be you? What would that mean for your life? I've seen firsthand the impact this model has had on my life and the lives of my corporate clients. And I am confident that it can do the same for you. Are you ready to negotiate more of the best things in life? Click the link in the show notes to learn more. I'll catch you later.