Sales teams are shifting from phone calls and leisurely lunches to messaging on live chat tools, reflecting communication habits where everyone messages their friends all day long. To build meaningful sales relationships, sales teams need to be attuned to subtle clues in the conversation that reveal a potential customer's tone of voice, urgency, and mood. Assessing the opening dialogue is crucial, as customers who open with direct questions prioritize speed and accuracy, while those with more traditional greetings seek a conversational experience. Reading between the lines involves matching writing styles and tones with customers, watching for details such as introductions, contact info, vocabulary, formality, and abbreviations, which convey attitudes and emotions. Embracing emojis and gifs can also convey emotions, qualify responses, and send signals in chat-based conversations. Understanding these clues matters because sales conversations exist within a relationship cycle that depends on factors like timelines, buying power, decision making, and integration, and establishing a healthy relationship starts with using all available tools to read contacts' attitudes and establish rapport.