How often have you received an e-mail or message saying – Hello, I am Joe Blogs and I am so excited to get to know you, why not pop over to my website and.…I know you have because I have, in fact I have probably been the guilty party. In fact I do believe that I have a direct message exactly like that set up to thank people who follow me on Twitter….damn!

Phew! Just got back from Twitter and changed all my thank you messages!

So how can you build a rapport with someone enough to get them to buy from you?

First you need to build up your profile.
It is very important that you have your own website or Blog where people can read all about you, your exploits and expertise.

Nowadays it is very easy to set up a blog and if you sign up to Wordpress, for a small monthly fee, you can create as many websites or Blogs as you want. They have great templates and with a little knowledge it is simple to create a seriously professional looking website.
You should then join some great professional networking groups such as LinkedIn, Ecademy and Plaxo.
So what should your profile look like?

Remember, your profile is to promote you first then your business second.
Below are 6 the most important factors when creating your profile:

1. Your profile must have a picture of you, I can not stress this enough!

2. If, like me, you are self taught and your education history is not outstanding then leave it out.

3. The important part of your profile is your work experience. This is where you must not be afraid to “BIG” yourself up. I am not saying that you should lie, I am saying that you should accentuate!

Here is an example:
Pat Sutton – 2000 – 2009 Marketing Director – Advantage Business Angels
or
Pat Sutton – 2000 – 2009 Marketing Director – Advantage Business Angels where Sutton was instrumental in securing more than £21 million of investment for small to medium sized companies.

4. Your hobbies and interests. Here you should mention all the things you are passionate about. If someone is looking at your profile and teetering on the edge of contacting you and you happen to mention that you love James Taylor’s music and so do they then it could well push them over the edge. Be-careful though if you have controversial tastes, you don’t want to lose them because they don’t agree with you on something.

5. Where you are based. If your product or service is aimed at the local market then of-course it is advisable to mention that you are local, in fact it is imperative, but if your product is for a national or even world wide audience then I would not publish your locality.

6. Your expertise. It is important that people see you are an expert and a leader but they must also see you as approachable and friendly.

Very important – be careful once you have made that first contact with someone, too many people jump in with the hard sell before they have built a relationship.

Learn about them first, you do this by learning to listen. How many of us wait with baited breath to jump into a conversation with a witty comment. You literally spend all the time people are talking to prepare yourself for your contribution to the conversation rather than really listening to what they are saying.

Listening is power – if you listen you will learn what others want. A good sales person will use the information deemed from listening to create follow up questions. So listen in order to understand. Once you have listened then follow up with questions, this makes people feel important. If you have made them feel more important you are on the right track to creating a positive relationship.
So:

1. Listen – to hear them, not to give you an “in” to speak.
2. Listen – to remember, nothing makes more of an impact than you remembering important details and then building a conversation around those details.�
3. Listen – to boost their ego, nothing is more of a favourite topic than talking about one’s self. Encourage them to talk about themselves.
4. Listen – So that you will learn what is their pain and you can then show them ways to help relieve the pain.

This is my magic formula – First create a profile that people will be drawn to.
Build relationships because relationships are the key to profit.
Make contact, communicate, listen and remember. At the right time, use the power of the follow up question to show them the way to relieve their pain.

Pat Sutton is the author of “The Image Attraction System” http://www.TheImageAttractionSystem.com

---

Pat Sutton - The Profile Coach - Author and Founder of "The Image Attraction System" !

9 Responses to “If you build relationships – they will come!”