Trending
Most advisors been taught what’s called the “know-like-trust” model of selling.
Invest time in getting to know your prospect, because once they get to know and like you, they’ll buy from you.
But while building rapport used to help in the past, there’s no place for that now in the commoditised business environment of today.
Stay with me on this, don’t freak out.
Your prospect has too many other options and distractions in their lives — and building rapport with them, over time, won’t create the decisiveness you need to overcome other factors competing for their attention.
Rapport-building doesn’t generate new clients.
It generates long cycles of hoping, waiting, and chasing... which diminishes your authority and allows your prospect to deprioritize their financial situation.
The days of building rapport over time, to get the sale, are over.
You need to onboard your prospect as a client in the first meeting, or they’ll entertain other thoughts and ideas, and get drawn elsewhere.
This might sound unrealistic to you but it’s important to know that if you focus on clarifying your prospect’s issue, like a doctor diagnoses a patient, you can build trust instantly.
You don’t need rapport – they don’t have to like you, to work with you.
When someone develops a health issue, the first thing they do is to try to figure out what the cause might be on their own.
They read up on this and that, try a bunch of home remedies, etc.
But nothing works, the issue persists.
Finally, they decide to book an appointment with a doctor.
When they meet with their doc, he doesn't spend time getting to know them.
He goes straight into diagnosis-mode.
Why?
Because his time is valuable.
There are other patients who need his help.
If patients could diagnose themselves, then they could also treat themselves, and there’d be no need to see a doctor.
But evidently that’s not true because here they are, in the doctor’s clinic.
Avoiding rapport with patients is also at the heart of a doctor’s professional discipline.
A misdiagnosis is a potentially serious matter and to avoid it, they must be problem-centric in their approach at all times.
Rapport has nothing to do with the problem, so it’s factored out of the process.
Likewise, as an advisor, rapport makes it harder to get to the truth with your prospect, which is:
-
Clarity on the underlying cause of their financial situation, which they couldn’t get on their own.
-
What needs to happen to resolve it.
And...
-
Whether they want to resolve it or not.
The answers to these three points are the only things that determine whether you’ll do business together, not rapport.
You can still be friendly and empathetic but it’s important to remember, your prospect isn’t looking for a friend nor are they looking for information about your solution.
They’re looking for someone they can trust to solve their problem for them.
And building rapport — the know-like-trust approach — can't create that trust in the time frame you need it to.
But being problem-centric, where you diagnose your “patient” like a financial doctor and get to the truth with them, can build trust in a spit second.
Instant trust, not rapport, is what you need to build with your prospects in the new economy.
It's time to leave old sales practices like rapport–building in the past, where they belong.
Instead, learn how to build trust around your prospect’s problem in the first meeting, so that resolving it becomes their priority, and they say “Let’s do this” at the end.
If you're ready to convert clients in one decisive meeting, without having to build rapport over time and hope that it results in a decision, get your complimentary books and consultation below.
Related: Is the "Expert Sale" Model Still Relevant Today?
Get Ari’s 6 best-selling books for FREE here and you’ll also receive a Complimentary Sales and Lead Generation Consultation (value $995.00). Ari Galper is the world’s number one authority on trust-based selling and is the most sought-after high-net-worth new client acquisition expert for financial advisors. His latest books "Are You Chasing Ghosts", "Trusted Authority" and "Trust In A Split Second" have become instant best-sellers among financial advisors worldwide, get your free books here.