Coaching practices for How to Build Rapport Before Persuading

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For How to Build Rapport Before Persuading, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • When I’m trying to bring someone around, they treat me as an outsider pushing my own agenda
  • I lead straight in with my pitch and watch people’s guard go up before I’ve finished a sentence
  • I keep losing the same argument by pushing harder, and it’s starting to dawn on me that I’ve never once tried to actually see it from their side first
  • I tend to drop the whole big request on someone cold, all at once, and they balk
  • I open with my thesis and a wall of supporting points, and I can watch the room go into critique-mode and pick it apart

Practices that may help

  1. Activate unity — shared identity before the message
    Establish genuine shared identity with your audience before presenting your position.
    Pre-Suasion, Made Practical
  2. Channel attention to the relevant concept before the ask
    Briefly focus the audience on a concept that makes your core message naturally follow.
    Pre-Suasion, Made Practical
  3. See things from the other person’s point of view
    Try honestly to see things from the other person’s angle before you argue your own.
    How to Win Friends and Influence People, Made Practical
  4. Elicit a small consistency cue before the main ask
    Get a small, genuine agreement or self-description before the main request — people act consistently with what they’ve said.
    Pre-Suasion, Made Practical
  5. Lead with a character, not a point
    Open with a specific person in a specific situation before you state your argument.
    Storytelling for Persuasion, Made Practical
  6. Prime identity before the ask — "what kind of person are you?"
    Invite the person to describe who they are in terms that align with the behavior you’re requesting.
    Pre-Suasion, Made Practical
  7. Liking
    We say yes to people we like — and similarity, compliments, and cooperation grow liking.
    Cialdini’s Principles of Influence
  8. Pre-Suasion, Made Practical
    Pre-suasion, Robert Cialdini’s term, is the practice of directing attention to a concept or feeling immediately before a message so that the audience is primed to receive it favorably. The core finding is that what people are thinking about just before a message reshapes how they interpret it — making the moment before you speak as important as the message itself.
  9. Storytelling for Persuasion, Made Practical
    When listeners become absorbed in a narrative, their counter-argument generation drops and attitudes shift toward the story’s perspective — a process called narrative transportation. Experimental research confirms that well-crafted stories can be more persuasive than equivalent statistical evidence, particularly for value-laden or identity-relevant topics.
  10. Match task-first vs. relationship-first opening
    Open the way your audience prefers — some need rapport first, others need the agenda first.
    The Platinum Rule

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