Something that still amazes me about my father is his easy rapport.  Dad is better at making someone like him in 30 seconds than anyone I’ve ever seen.  It’s like you’re out with him and your attention is elsewhere for just a moment, and when you look up again he’s laughing and gabbing with a guy in line like he’s known him 20 years.  I saw it most recently on our way out of Barber last month.

Dad spent most of his career in machine shops.  About the last two-thirds of that was as a manufacturer’s representative.  Essentially, he’d take plans for a part, assembly, or whatever from a company who’d say “we need 100,000 of these,” and show this shop or that the plans and say “can you make 100,000 of these?”

That’s basically a sales position, but there’s an extra strike against him in that relationship.  After all, he’s a professional middle man, is he not?  After the shop and the customer are matched up, what do they need him for?  Heh.  Dad usually did a pretty good job of demonstrating ongoing value and keeping a check in his pocket, and his interpersonal skills were a huge asset.

I got a pretty good dose of those skills myself.  I’ve sold for a living before, and  for that time in my life I never had a single dollar that didn’t come from me convincing someone that a car I had available was worth him/her swapping tens of thousands of dollars for.  A lot of that is rapport-building, because it all follows from there.

But I don’t have it like Dad has it.  Almost no one has it like Dad has it.  The older I get, and the more I experience, the more I realize that.