Rapport is so important.
In my business dealings, I take it to mean building an understanding and relating to others in a way that ensures we trust each other. I can’t stress enough how important this is. You might be dealing with someone who’s built up their business over many years, who have family members in the workforce, who see the business as inheritance for their children. We use the phrase often, but clichés have their foundation in truth; the company, to them, is their baby.
You wouldn’t entrust your ‘baby’ to just anyone and trust takes time and effort to establish.
Similarly, you’re going to be asking lots of questions; searching questions that help you to establish whether this is the right business for you to buy. It’s so much easier to get the information you need if the vendor trusts and likes you. There’s another cliché – people like to deal with people they like. We all do it. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but we’ve all chosen a supplier or a client based on how well we get on, whether they ‘get us’, how much we trust them. We make decisions based on rapport.
Not everyone is going to like you, but for me It’s about applying a system – one that I’ve learned over time that helps you find out what really matters to the vendors of a business and that allows you to craft a truly win win result.
Just to side-track for a second – this throws up another element that comes into play here; body language. It’s fairly common knowledge that a tiny 7% of communication come from the spoken word, so if you’re on the phone to a seller you’re reliant on your tone as much as what you actually say. Your tone equates to 38% of communication and your body language a whopping 55% so it’s worth being mindful of this before making an important call. It’s funny, I know plenty of people who say they’re rubbish on the phone and prefer face to face meetings – understandable when you break down the components of communication. Then there are others who prefer emailing to phone calls. Without the other factors to back them up those words have really got a tough job to do, which is undoubtedly why emails and texts are often misinterpreted.
All of this is useful to know, but ultimately, it’s about being professional.
I’m not suggesting you are not in any way professional in the way you go about your current business anyway. But, in my opinion, it’s very important that you set yourself up properly to engage with prospective vendors of businesses. These are the steps I recommend:
- Establish a website devoted to your business of acquisitions, saying who you are and what kinds of business you want.
- Create an information pack in a PDF that can be emailed to vendors and their advisers, with FAQs on your process. This is professional and reassuring that you know what you’re doing.
- Create a presentation that can go to prospective funders, again explaining what you need and how you plan to use the funding mix that you might use.
- Set up a dedicated CRM to keep in touch with prospects and record the relationship progress. Sometimes deals come back to the table and you need to be ready.
- Have a targeting process, introductory letters, sent in a sequence, designed to build credibility and rapport as well as obtain response.
I run regular workshops where you can come and learn more about rapport building and other crucial elements of my business buying process.
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