Lessons

Lesson Info

The First Impression

Hello. Hello friends. My name is Vanessa van Edwards. I'm so excited to talk to you today about your sales. So I love setting people. I've researched human behavior for about 14 years which is crazy. And one thing that I've noticed is that behavior for sales folks is different than every other realm. And if you're in sales, if you've been trying to increase your sales, it has been a hard year. You're a few months. Your your God about 14 months. It's been a little bit hard. So my goal today is to give you some new tools and tricks that you can use to reinvigorate your sales. Mm And what most people don't realize. I think a lot about the pitch pitching someone their product. But actually I want to start off with the first impression. So your first impressions are everything. The research here is mind blowing. Researches found that our first impressions are lasting. In other words how we perceive someone in the first few seconds of interacting last for the entire interaction and then subs...

equent interactions. So if someone walks into your store or walks into your restaurant and they see a salesperson that first few seconds is going to inform their entire stay as well as subsequent days and your salespeople also represent their brand. This is something called the halo effect. The halo effect is a really interesting concept when it comes to charisma which is that if you have confident, warm, competent body language and first impressions that actually affects everything you touch. So if you're warm and competent it makes everything you touch, bookworm incompetent. If you're confident it makes your brand look more confident. There was one really great study that this was done by Professor Stephen ceci. What he wanted to know is if he could change his teacher evaluations, a lot of teaching is partially sales as well as educating as what he did is he took two of his classes and he verbally scripted them so word for word, they were exactly the same. So in your sales pitch, your sales pitch, you've given all your employees is typically the same. They had the same opener, they have the same uh, sales picture or didn't they tell people in one of his classes he did it exactly the way he normally does it in his second class, he added power body language, which we're going to talk about and the power body language class. All he did was change the nonverbal. So the verbal was exactly the same. At the end of the semester, students raided him on his warmth, his competence as well as textbook quality. She had to ask the university, he found the class where he used the power body language. Not only did he get overall higher ratings, so he was ready. This smarter, he was rated as more trustworthy. Even the textbook got higher quality ratings. In other words, if your sales people, if you as a salesperson are higher and warmth or you're able to show a lot of competence and confidence. It actually makes your products look better. It makes your brand look better. So this is one of the reasons why this is so important to start off with your first impression. First impression is all about nonverbal. Most people think about their opening line, but actually we look at first impressions. Most of them have to do with nonverbal cues. And the very first thing is, I don't know if you notice when I first started this video, I went high friends or high friends. The reason for that is because our hands are one of our most important first impression tools. What researchers have found is that when we can't see someone's hands. So even right now on video, if I were to have taught this entire lecture like this with my hands behind my back, two things would happen in your brain first is it makes it much harder to pay attention. So right now your brain is working doubly as hard to listen to just my words. The moment I bring my hands back, it also feels like we can see what she's doing and that's because our hands, in a way crazily our our deadliest weapon, right? So when we look at hands, we see if someone's going to shake our hand, are they going to wave to us? They're gonna high five. Also they're gonna fist bump up. Are they going to reach out and push us? Are they going to hand us something? So we're very aware of hands. One of the most important things that your sales people can do in a first impression is immediately trigger trigger trust with hands first, the moment someone walks into a store, hey, good morning, Welcome, Come on in on a video call. Hey, good to see you. Hey, nice to see you. You will notice that people immediately go, wow, I'm welcome. And that's because we use our hands acknowledgement, right? Whenever we want to be acknowledged, we're looking for a wave, a raise hand high five. So we're always looking for that. You also want to have your hands incredibly visible during the actual sales process. This sounds really funny, but remember Vanna White, you know how she would say like, oh, like here you go, Here it is, There's that letter for you. Here you are. She's very handy, right? Like she's very handy. We love it. Our brains are like, oh, we can see her hands, we can see her intention. And so I don't want your salespeople to be exactly like Vanna White, but I do want them to be pretty darn close. Right? So if you're showing something, we actually don't like pointing. So when the first impression, if you say come on in what you're looking for, oh, the sweaters are over there, we actually really don't like pointing. I don't know what it is about humans, but we think it's a kind of aggressive, you're much better off saying, hey, welcome in. Oh, you're looking for sweaters, They're right over there. Doesn't it look so much better, aren't you? Like, Oh, the sweaters are over there, that's so much better. So it's a really small little tip, but hands first, so greeting with the hands and even when people are leaving. So good to see you, thank you so much for coming in and showing people absolutely right over here. How can I help you please? Take a seat, please come on in. Or if you're passing out masks or you want people to wear use hand sanitizer. Here's a mask for you. There's masks right there for you at the door. Please be sure to get some hand sanitizer. All of those things are brain loves it. So first impression hands first, the second thing that you want to do is you want to be respectful of space. Now this has become especially it's brought to the forefront of our consciousness in the last few months because of social distancing. But when we talk about people were very aware of space ranges and typically there are four ranges of space, the public zone, the social zone, the personal zone and the intimate zone in sales. One of the biggest mistakes that sales people make is they either stay in the last zones, they stay really far away, They stay in the public zone. So public zone, depending on your culture, is about 5 to 7 ft away. So big mistake that sales will make is they stand seven or more feet away across the store front of the restaurant and they say, hi, come on in. It's almost impossible for someone on a first impression to ask any kind of deep question or share what they're looking for. This happens to me all the time. I walk into a store and someone across the room is folding sweaters or at the register there at the check in table and they say, can I help you with anything? There is no way friend that I'm gonna yell across the store from public zone to public zone, just looking for some new intimates. There's no way I'm going to yell that right. Or even like, can I get you a table for please near the window? Know what always happens if people will walk a little bit closer and then share. And so it's really essential is that sales people should be aware of the middle two zones, the social zone and the personal zone. The socials on the personal zone is about a foot and a half, about five ft apart. That's the sweet zone. So the very first minute sales people should do is try to get into that little zone. And right now social distancing six ft is what we like to stay. Perfect. That is right at the edge of the personal zone. That's where people begin to think, oh, I can tell someone what I'm looking for or I can tell someone what I'm concerned with. I can tell someone what something that I need. So hey, welcome into the store. What can I help you with? So only asking that second question or the welcome. Can I get you something table? Do you have an appointment? Any of those questions should happen right at that six ft 5 ft mark. That's like a really easy way to get someone to be like, I'm truly welcomed. So first impression hands coming into someone's personal zone and then of course, you know, we have to talk a little bit about eye contact, especially with a mask on. So let's actually do a little demo. So here's a mask for you. So now in public, people aren't getting a mass setting for a long time and this is going to stay for a long time. So when someone's first coming in, the original thing that I would say in sales is to smile, right? That's essential. Part of the warmth process. Hey, nice to see you. We love to see the whites of someone's teeth. In fact, the smile is the only expression that we can see from over 100 ft away because the whites of our teeth reflect the light and that there's a reason we do that. So when we go like this, you know, back in our caveman days, if we saw someone's whites, we saw their friend not so well now we can't see it. Right? So if my masks on, hi, you can't see if I'm smiling right? So immediately your brain is like, do they like me? Are they friend or foe? Even though we're not consciously aware of this subconsciously if you can't see my smile, you're worrying. Does she like me? Am I welcome? Am I safe? So if you don't have a smile, you have to use the other tools at your disposal. So definitely a hand right? Like what's better? Hi, welcome in. Hi, welcome in. No question. This one's better. Right, So hi, welcome in and then making sure that you're as you're walking into, as you're walking into that 5-6 foot away, you are making eye contact. And I know this sounds like very obvious you're like, of course make eye contact. You'd be surprised how often I don't see this. Here's what I see all the time. So I walk into a store front or even on a video call and I see this. They have their clipboard, clipboard or their notes or their phone or their ipad and they're like this, Hey, welcome in. Nice to see you. Can I help you with anything? No nothing. So we have a sale going on right over here and um if you want to all that, those things are in the back and those, there's actually very little eye contact going on surprisingly. And that's because we're looking at our clipboard, we're looking at what's your reservation uh what time um what's your name for? How many? Yeah, I got it. Come with me and that entire first impression, there's no eye contact or your gesturing around that, what you're looking for is over there. Sure you can go over there. The problem with that is we are missing a critical, critical chemical called oxytocin. So I love oxytocin so much. I talked about a lot in my book. I even have it on my wall. Where is it right down there? And you can see oxytocin. So oxytocin is the chemical of connection and the way that we produce. Oxytocin mostly in human interactions is two ways. Um touch handshake high five fist bump hug or eye contact. Well these days we're not doing much touching right? Even in old old school sales rooms were not even handshaking anymore. So what do we do to replace that? Is eye contact becomes even more essential the moment we lock eyes with someone, even through a webcam. So they've even proven that through a webcam when we make eye contact. Like right now I'm trying as hard as I can to give you oxytocin right? Like I'm trying to send you as much access as I possibly can. So when your first meeting someone, I want you to have at least five seconds of mutual eye contact. Hey, what brings you in today? I'm so glad you're able to come. Can I help you with anything? Even just that couple of seconds. Chemically produced oxytocin? Oxytocin, the way that it feels in the body is trust. When we have oxytocin flowing through our bloodstream were like, I feel good. I feel welcome. I can trust this person's opinion. So when they ask you for, do you like this sweater? Hey, what would you recommend on the menu today? What do you think I should do if you had those five seconds of oxytocin, your first impression, they are much more likely to believe you and ask for your opinion. So five seconds of mutual gazing. If you can do it, try to stay out of your clipboard, out of your reservation system. Even down to I know you're looking at a reservation system but I would rather have you be like how many for how many? Five name is Edwards got it. Let me just check right here. Right? So even just those few seconds, man, chemically it gives you a boost. It really, really helps people actually feel connected. So those are the three things. I don't remember your first impression. There was a lot in there, but man, it sets you up for success.