7 Nonverbal Secrets For The Salesperson

According to Patti Wood, author of "Success Signals - Body Language in Business," 85% of the buying decision is not based on what you say, but what you do nonverbally. Patti discusses 7 nonverbal secrets in Club Solutions Magazine that will help you land more deals and close more sales. Learn the power of the "silent sell" at the link!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/34851923/Club-Solutions-7-Nonverbal-Secrets-for-the-Salesperson

Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at http://pattiwood.net/. Also check out the body language quiz on her YouTube Channel at http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.

Job Interviewing Tips on Eye Contact by Patti Wood MA, CSP

Gaze sends a message of power. It also gives you control of the conversation even as the listener. To build rapport you need to gaze, looking and then looking away about 60 to 70 percent of the time. If you are not sure if you look enough ask yourself if your getting the attention and results from people that you want. Eye Contact sends the message that you are serious. If your still not sure ask the people you interact with wither you give enough eye contact.
You need to make good eye-contact with others. A lack of eye-contact can make you look dishonest, disrespectful, evasive, rude, incompetent, lacking in confidence or lacking in conviction. In North American Culture we expect people to look at us when we are talking to them.
If people find you overbearing I can bet your eye contact is part of the problem. If you look too long and don’t break away enough it’s intimidating. You want to gaze not stare. Gazing is very different than staring if you gaze more than that 70 percent of the time people are going to think you’re a bully, you’re weird or that they have spinach between their teeth.
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional
The Body Language Expert
Web- http://www.PattiWood.net
I have a new quiz on my YouTubestation. Check it out!
YouTube- YouTube - bodylanguageexpert's Channel

Signs a Guy Likes You

I remember when I was a little girl my friends and I would pick wild flowers in the field behind my house. I would hold a flower and think of a guy I liked and pick off petals saying, "He loves me. He loves me not." Now you don't have to pick the petals off a flower to tell if a guy likes you. You can watch his body language.

Animals like to show off and make themselves look good when they are attracted to the opposite sex. It's called preening. You may preen by touching or gently twisting your hair around your fingers when you are with a guy you like. Guys preen as well.

When a guy likes you he may:

• Slick back his hair with his hand
• Smooth out his eyebrows.
• Straighten his shirt collar
• Smooth out the "invisible wrinkles in his pants
• Adjust his belt or pull up the waist of his pants

A man may also signal he like you by:

Turning his toes towards you when he is talking with you. (Notice especially if the toes stay pointed towards you when you are talking.) We naturally tend to point our toes towards people who interest us -- It's like a compass pointing towards true north.

The rest of his body may show he is into you as well. He could be talking to someone else, but if he notices you and he is attracted to you, he may angle his feet, his lower torso and/or his heart towards you and may not even realize it.

Notice his eyes to see if he is into you. When he looks you in the eye, his pupils (the black circles in the middle of his eyeballs) will get bigger if he likes you. If he likes what he sees he wants to see it well so the pupils dilate to take you in. Pupil dilation happens automatically when you are attracted to someone. Since a guy cannot control it, it is a great 'tell'. However it can also occur when someone is drunk or drugged or in low lighting so don't automatically whoop and say, "He loves me!" when a man's eyes dilate.

What Do His Eyes Say? Eye behavior, Attraction and Lying

True or false - The meaning of eye cues
Recently a national magazine sent me these eye cues and asked me if the meanings they had listed by them where accurate. They where looking for cues that women could use to read men. Here are my answers.

• True or False: He flashes his eyebrows = He’s attracted to you - A guy raises his eyebrows in a friendly greeting as a signal of "I come in friendship and you don’t need to be fearful of my approach." It’s very primal. If the eyes were squinted into a narrow focus it would signal that the he may be zeroing in for attack.(In other words perhaps purely a sexual conquest.) If the eyebrow flash stays a moment longer it typically signals, “I recognize you and I am approaching in friendship." Picture the little cartoon bubble above the guys head saying,"Oh I know you and I like you." If the eyebrow flash stays a moment longer and is combined with a real smile that goes all the way to the eyes it could signal attraction. He is saying, “I like what I see so I want my eyes to stay open longer to enjoy it.”

• His brows scrunch together and lift in the middle = He’s sad/disappointed
Actually that is not quite accurate. In intense sadness the eyes look down and the and the upper eyelids droop and most importantly only the inner corners of the upper eyebrows go up. So you see the eyebrows raised in the middle of the face above the nose.You can see deep furrows or set of furrows above the nose and you will also see two furrows going out and down from the outer corners of each of the eyes. The unique eye cue that only shows in deep sadness is the raised inner corners of the upper eyebrows. Paul Eckman, the father of facial expression research, shares in his book, Emotions Revealed, that a few actors like Woody Alan and Jim Carrey use that eyebrow cue quite often. I think it makes us feel sorry for them like little lost puppies. Make that Basset hound puppies.

• He closes his eyes for more than a second while speaking = He might be lying – It could mean that, but again you have to note what is happening as he shuts his eyes. We shut our eye when we don’t like what we are seeing. We may close them a bit longer than a normal blink when we hear something we don’t like or when we don’t like or believe what we are saying. (So if they guy closes his eyes in an unnaturally long blink as he says, “I will call you,” don’t wait by the phone. Know a guy may close his eyes a moment longer than normal throughout the entire conversation if he is tired or if he is with someone he doesn’t like or he doesn’t like where the conversation is going.

• His eyes shift down and to the right = He’s experiencing a deep emotion. It is not that simple though you can find some NLP books that say this is true. It is actually more complex than that. If the guy is right handed and he looks down and to the right he may be accessing emotions. Please don’t quote this as down to the right means he experiences deep emotions -- it is not accurate. And eye accessing happens so quickly most people won’t be able to catch it consciously. You could look for another eye cue to see if a man is attracted to you. When someone is looking down with both eyes it can be a signal of submission so if a guy is talking to you and he smiles and looks down with both eyes he may be silently saying, "You are so beautiful I would be dazzled and overwhelmed if I kept looking at you. I bow (with my eyes) to your loveliness." Note that looking down can also indicate that the person is feeling guilty so watch if his eyes go down as he says he is single and available!

12 body language tricks for great first impressions for women working internationally.

I was asked today by a journalist for my for 10 body language “tricks” for good first impressions for business woman for an issue of Harper’s Bazaar Dubai. This has been one of my favorite research areas for many years and certainly one of my audience's favorites so here are my top 12.

1. Make palm to palm contact. The single most important part of the international business handshake is making palm to palm contact.
2. The palm of the hand shows you’re willing to be honest and that you come to business meeting “unarmed”
3. Start early. Men are not always sure whether to shake hands and how to shake hands or greet women, especially in a mixed culture setting so let your body language show what you want. At fifteen feet flash up your eyebrows to show you see them.
4. Then smile to show you’re friendly. The smile is the single most important nonverbal cue to show friendliness. It is actually able to be recognized from 300 feet away and a true wide smile is one of the few cues that have the same meaning in all cultures.
5. Put out your hand at 6 to four feet away from the person you want to greet so they know you want to shake hands. If you prefer not to approach with your hands at your side and your left side slightly in front of you as you meet.
6. People can form a first impression in less than a fortieth of a second and may be deciding what they think about you before you begin to speak so if you know you are about to greet someone important make sure you posture is “up” make sure your head is up and above your shoulders. If you are seated rise to greet others so that your are on an equal plane. (Unless you are eating. You shouldn't’t go up to shake hands with someone who is eating, nor should you have to shake hands when someone approaches you when you are eating. )
   Make sure your posture is “open” that is, and your arms are not held or folded in front of your heart. That communicates that you may be afraid or lack confidence.
   Animate your voice. Make sure it has the appropriate energy to show you are pleased and happy to meet someone.
   Men prefer to talk face to face standing and side to side or catty corner sitting. Choose to stand or sit to make a man comfortable and he is more likely to have a favorable impression of you.
   Remove your bracelets from your right hand if you choose to shake hands in a business setting as they send a first impression, “I am a woman” rather than, “I am a smart impressive person.”
   A first impression is formed very quickly, but there is also a "recency effect". People remember the LAST thing you say or do. It is especially critical in an initial interaction. Make sure you end the conversation with appropriate eye contact. Think about the other person, make a real connection with them, smile softly and make sure that if you leave with a closing statement such as, “It was a pleasure meeting you.” That your voice is expressive and sincere. Think and feel the statement as your say it rather that say it automatically.
   We often are thinking of ourselves, how we look, in an initial interaction. The big secret is to focus on the other person. Make it your job and your pleasure to make them feel comfortable and you will definitely make a great first impression!
   
   Written by Patti Wood MA, CSP.

Mens Health - Great Eye Contact Question...

I recently helped to answer a question on Mens Health - Maybe you can benefit from my answer...

Question: I struggle to maintain eye contact. Can you help? Matt, Boston, MA

Answer: First, understand why you're loathe to lock eyes. "When you feel dominated, anxious, or shy, you look away as an attempt to regain control, disengage, and limit how much information you take in," says John Dovidio, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Yale University. So before any important conversation, make a conscious effort to rein in your addled emotions. If you're still struggling with eye contact, take the advice of body-language expert Patti Wood, M.A., and "split your attention among the person's mouth, eyes, and cheeks." This makes wandering eyes less obvious. And don't stop trying: University of Colorado researchers found that meeting a person's gaze makes you seem powerful and credible.