Pace Your Reader’s Starting Point

You can establish rapport by noticing and naming where your reader is starting from.

Yes, that means you need to think about who you’re writing to first – and that simple act will, in itself, help you to create rapport.

It means getting in tune with what they’re thinking and feeling, what kind of problems they’re tussling with, what kind of hopes and dreams make them smile.

Think about them when you start to write: what kind of mood they’re in, what frame of mind, what kind of things are bothering them.

Find some words for that state and work them into an early part of your writing.  It sends a subtle signal to your reader that you know where they’re at.  That you’re on their side.

It gets them, instantly, on your side.  They’re with you because somehow you know what it’s like to be them.  You’ve named their experience and in so doing you’re pacing them.  Walking right alongside them, walking in their shoes and breathing in their rhythm.

It’s a powerful first step in creating rapport.

TIP: look for words that are more universal than specific.  It’s hard to know *precisely* what someone is thinking or feeling, and if you get the words slightly wrong you’ll break the connection.

General and universal language is more likely to do the trick.  Take a phrase like “you know what it’s like when you feel stuck“, for example.  “Stuck” covers a multitude of sins, and each person will experience it differently.  The word is wide and general enough that lots of people can connect to it (and nearly everyone has felt some form of stuckness at one time or another.)

The extra words I’ve suggested adding in (“you know what it’s like..”) also play a part.  The suggestion that ‘you know what it’s like’ gets them to go inside and find that feeling again, and notice it.  It makes their feeling of the state of stuckness more specific to them, despite the general nature of your language.

It’s another simple way to send a signal that you ‘get’ them and that you’re on their side.