Selling Today: Partnering to Create Value, 14/e

Communication Styles—An Introduction to Adaptive Selling

1. 5.1 Discuss how communication style influences the relationship process in sales

Almost everyone has had the pleasant experience of meeting someone for the first time and developing an instant mutual rapport. There seems to be a quality about some people that makes you like them instantaneously—a basis for a mutual understanding that is difficult to explain. On the other hand, we can all recall meeting people who “turn us off” almost immediately. Why does this happen during the initial contact?

The impressions that others form about us are based on what they observe us saying and doing. They have no way of knowing our innermost thoughts and feelings, so they make decisions about us based ...