When I was a young man my first job in sales was selling gym memberships. One of the trainers that worked at this gym was a great guy, funny, sociable, and well liked, but he had tremendous difficulty communicating with certain types of people. My favorite thing about him was that he was always himself. This character trait had the downside of putting him against a wall where he became ineffective in his job.

I could see there was a problem but at the time I didn’t have the language to verbalize it to him. He was having a problem calibrating with those around him. Calibration is an aspect of rapport.

Calibrating with others requires us to fine tune our movements, cadence, rhythm, tone (etc.) with whomever we’re talking to. If I’m chatting with someone who is of lower energy, someone who sighs a lot or breathes deeply, I will match this level of energy. Likewise, if I’m with a fidgeter, someone whose energy is higher or manic, I will raise my energy to meet theirs.

This process also refers to the effect we have on others. When we’re out of calibration, we can manifest problems in all facets of life. Checking in with ourselves and the states of those around us gives us a wealth of information without even speaking a word.

In essence, calibration is akin to a working with a person’s energy.

Recently I posted an article with the exercise of ‘trying on someone else’s skin’. By becoming one with our potential clients we speed up trust and rapport incredibly. The response I get most often when I do this is ‘Man, it feels like we’ve known each other forever.’

Sometimes this level of calibration is so intense that it elicits supernatural confessions, as in, ‘It feels like we knew each other in a past life.’ Practically, logically, I understand not everyone subscribes to the concept of reincarnation, however, even if you don’t believe in this, think of how much trust and rapport is necessary for someone to say (let alone believe) that this is possible. If they feel this comfortable with you as to say something like that, they’ll most likely feel comfortable doing business with you as well.

Another phenomenal calibration exercise I posted an article about is the concept of surrounding ourselves in pink bubbles. This is a mutual calibration which encompasses both you and your prospect or client and evens out the level of energy between you again creating an instant trust and rapport.

And lastly, in case you missed it, since a lot of us work with groups of people, there is a group rapport building exercise called ’shovel it up, filter it out’. This is hot. I used this in Vegas at a recent seminar with amazing results and response. My energy, instead of being depleted at the end of the day (as is common for me when working with such large groups, was supercharged. (That is, until the end of the third day when I finally sat down and thought, ‘Oops. I shouldn’t have stopped. It’s going to be hard to get back up.’)

If you missed these posts, go back and have a look. You’ll find your results with rapport skyrocket.