Hey, creative. You wanna be better at sales? You wanna make more sales, make more money? Of course you do. I’ll be honest with you, I’m pretty good at sales. I’m pretty good at closing deals. I always have been. And for the longest time, I didn’t really know why I just kind of went with it. But over the years, I’ve learned, uh, why I had a kind of an inclination to, uh, do sales. But what I’ve learned is the number one, the most important element of sales is a word called rapport. Rapport. You know what rapport is? It’s a connection with another human being. It’s a point of commonality. It’s something you have in common. And, and when we meet people, and whether we’re at a cocktail party or a, some sort of social gathering, we just meet somebody at a bus stop. I don’t know if you have something in common, if you like the same video game, if you watch the same TV show, if you’ve read the same book, if you look like the same shoes, you have an instant connection with that person.
It’s called rapport. And so in sales, it is crucial that you build rapport with people quickly because it connects you to them, and it makes them more amenable to listen to you talk about your business or something else. Now, how many times have you been met somebody and they immediately, when you first meet them, start talking about their business and what they wanna sell you? It’s, it’s such an off-putting thing. It’s so terrible. It’s gross. Well, here’s the thing is rapport is built. When you connect with another person over something they are interested in. Not you necessarily, but they, you have to connect with them on something that’s interesting to them. So how do you do that? How do you increase your chances that the a person you meet, you can find something you have in common? Well, here’s how I do it. I, I do it by trying to broaden my interests and broaden my knowledge and broaden just things I know about. I do it through books. Okay? I like to read. So let, let me show you, for instance, I just took a random sampling from my bookshelf and show you some <laugh>, some of the books I’ve collected over the years and I’ve read, here’s a book about Henry vii, Carol Erickson Lover.
Here is a book by, um, Carl Sagan called Pale Blue dot, a book about astronomy. Here’s a, um, here’s a book about charcuterie. Here’s a great Shell Silverstein book, lightning at it. Y’all remember that one? Yeah. Shell Silverstein. Here’s a book, um, called Invisible Light Poems About God. Because, because Why Not, um, knots and rope work. The National Audubon Society Wildflower God, the Wildflowers. I love flowers. God, the wildflowers, um, uh, raising meat goats. I thought I was gonna raise meat. Raise meat goats for a while there. Okay, look, it helps that I’m a nerd anyway, okay? It helps that I’m, I’m a dork and I’m interested in these things, but broadening your knowledge base and broadening the things you just know a little bit about. You don’t have to be an expert. Just know a little bit about increases your chances that you can build rapport with people.
Increase the rapport with people. Increase your sales, I promise. It doesn’t have to be books for you. It can be podcasts, it can be movies, it can be documentaries, it can be, I don’t know, but get outside what you already know a little bit and start to learn about other things and then watch what happens. It’s, it’s shocking when you’re in a meeting or in some sort of event, it will come up. The people wanna say something like, ah, I know about that. And you can connect with them a little bit. I promise. It works like a charm. And by the way, you can make more friends. It doesn’t have to be all about sales. It can be about being a good human, which really, that’s what sales is about and business should be about. So listen to a different podcast. Read a different magazine. Watch a different documentary in the genre you, you’ve never even thought about or read a, read a book about raising meat goats, even if you never plan to. That’s my number one tip about sales. Do this, you’ll be a more well-rounded human being, and I promise you’ll close more deals. You can do it, y’all. I love you.