Building Rapport...

 Building rapport is a key skillset in sales and negotiation. 

Anyone who seeks to influence the outcome or persuade someone to their side needs to understand how to build rapport. 

Many people think building rapport is seeing a fish on their mantle and saying "oh you like to fish, I like to fish" then talking about fishing for 30 minutes. 

That is not building rapport and it is transparently disingenuous. 

Rather, you should build rapport by asking thought-provoking and discussion-enabling questions. 

Sales Skills Above All Else.

 Learning how to sell is one of the most important skills I think anyone can learn in today's world. 

There is very little if any formal learning of this skill set. We tend to think salespeople are born not made but this could not be further from the truth. 

Selling is a fundamental truth about any profession that you are in regardless of what you think your title. 

I like to say everyone in a company is a salesperson just some people get paid for it. 

You have to sell your ideas, you have to sell your boss on that promotion, you have to sell your spouse on that new restaurant. Selling is a skill everyone should learn. 

Above all else, sales are about listening and understanding problems and helping to solve those problems with products and services or ideas.