If you can develop a personality, stay open minded and become good at people skills, then I can guarantee you that you will get along with 90% of people out there.

That is pretty much all it takes for others to like you. Now don’t get me wrong, it does take work to develop these characteristics, but worry not, I will help you get there step by step.

It’s all about baby steps.

In this article I will briefly show you some ways you can easily develop rapport with people. All that means is that you are able to get along with other people as soon as you meet them. This is a neat skill to have, but does take time to be really good at (then again what doesn’t?), but eventually this will become part of your natural character.

Here is the formula to develop rapport. Please memorize it because it sums up everything I will talk about.

RAPPORT = TRUST + COMFORT

As people, we are all selfish. If you show me a group picture of myself and others, who do you think I will look for first in the picture? Me off course. Similarly, when you meet people, just remember that it is NOT ABOUT YOU and ALL ABOUT THEM. This is such a basic rule that I can’t believe I am writing about it (maybe because people still don’t get it).

Another thing you need to keep in mind in order to stand out is that people are very good at remembering (even exaggerating) negative or really positive experiences. What that means is that anything considered somewhat good or average will be easily forgotten. The goal is always to STAND OUT from the crowd.

You do know that first impression is critical because it is very difficult to change someone’s impression about you after the initial meeting? With that in mind, you need to learn to create powerful first impressions.

The basics of this can be done through:

• Looking clean and good
• Solid handshake (if needed)
• Smiling
• Confident body language
• Eye contact
• Speaking in a clear and loud enough voice tone

The whole art of body language will be something I will write more on. The basics are very easy. Stand straight, don’t lean into the other person, look the person in the eye and project a clear & loud voice so the other person can hear you. Do these things while looking calm, relax and with a smile on your face. Try not to look goofy or fake.

If the other person intimidates you, just convince yourself that you are the one who writes their paycheck (more on mind games in future articles).

This is how I see the process of meeting someone and quickly building rapport:

1. Impress the person you are meeting
2. Show interest in the person by focusing on them
3. Leave on a memorable note.

The above three steps will create comfort & trust and satisfy the rapport formula.

Everything I have mentioned above is incredibly basic, yet you would be surprised at how big percentage of people don’t know it. Lets us now slightly build on the above information.

If you really want people to remember you then you can’t be using the same robotic approaches/methods that others do. You have to have some uniqueness in your style and approach which people will appreciate.

In simple words, lets say you meet a person. Within 5 seconds you have already been judged, so if you followed the above advice on creating powerful first impressions, then the judgment should be in your favor.

Next you have to show some interest in the person. You have to make sure that you are either sincere or a really good actor. I recommend being sincere although good acting skills are always nice to have.

When showing interest in the other person, asking them questions is generally the easiest way to go about doing it as this creates conversation. However, you can’t ask anything. The questions have to be non-intriguing and should make the other person think before giving you a answer.

You don’t want to receive canned/robotic answers because that is very average.

Here are some topic suggestions to talk about when creating a conversation.

• Talk about what is important to the other person and show interest in it.
• Talk about a similar interest that you both share.
• Talk about common enemies
• Give value (meaning teach them something cool, or impress them with some new beneficial knowledge)

When you are done the conversation, you have to leave on a memorable note.  You want the person to remember you by name and associate positive feelings to you.  I will talk about this in more details, but for now you can do this:

Refer to the other person using their name, take something interesting from the conversation and give a compliment to show the other person that they fascinated you.

Wow, this article contains a lot of theory and I purposely kept it this way. Now that you understand the basics of building rapport, I can talk about how to give value, tell amazing stories, intrigue & fascinate people etc in future articles. And yes, I promise to give real examples, so until then, suck it up.

Talk soon.