5
READING AND MANAGING RESPONSES
Each of the Big Four—illustrators, regulators, adaptors, and barriers—can signal the four key responses during a sales encounter: acceptance, rejection, indecision, and deferral. And when you consider the energy and focus behind the actions, you can also get a good reading on the mood and mental state of the individual. You will see signs of emotions that are more subtle that the eight described in conjunction with the discussion of universal facial expressions. On the negative side, these might include disapproval, suspicion, confusion, distraction, embarrassment, and condescension. On the positive side, they might include delight, comfort, hope, safety, certainty, and desire.
Some gestures stand alone as indicators of a person’s judgment or mood, but others need to be seen in conjunction with facial expressions in order to be interpreted correctly.
Key Responses
You are always aiming for acceptance, unless you are in an information gathering and sharing stage prior to seeking acceptance. If you have met with rejection and are able to progress toward indecision or deferral, then you still have a path to acceptance, but it may be a long and winding road.
Here are the body language cues to look for with the key responses. They are followed by a look at the emotional drivers that move a prospect or customer in negative or positive directions. We introduce ways to turn the negatives around, or exploit the positives, and keep moving toward acceptance. More detail on this is embedded on the chapters in Part II on specific selling challenges.
Acceptance
Look for a genuine smile—that is, one in which the eyes are engaged rather than the staged smile of a movie star on the red carpet. This is a strong sign that the person accepts you. You should get the distinct sense that the individual is focused on you and is directing his energy toward you.
Open, invitational body language includes illustrators conveying relaxation and connection. Hands, arms, and eyes may have an animation that openly encourages you to keep talking. You might even see some mirroring. For example, you move your hands to make a point, he spontaneously expresses agreement and “I get it” by moving his arms in a similar way.
A person who accepts you has a certain comfort level with you, so you may not see any adaptors, or they will be minimal. If you see adaptors accompanied by a high, positive energy, it could just mean that person is stressed in a good way—excited by your product or service.
People who accept you drop their barriers. They make no attempt to shut you out; they feel no need to shield themselves from you.
As you will see with any good talk-show host, relaxed body language can get people talking, even about difficult subjects. Their nods and engaged eyes invite more conversation and signal agreement. These are regulators of acceptance.
Rejection
These signs and signals are the opposite of those expressing acceptance. This is body language that is closed, possibly jerky because of annoyance or disinterest.
Whipping movements with the arms, finger pointing, and other actions that suggest disagreement, frustration, or rebuke are illustrators of rejection. Another one is any movement that gives you the sense you are being pushed away, such as hands on the conference table that look like they are going to shove it toward you.
The number and severity of adaptors depend on how much self-control and/or confidence the person has. A person who feels uncomfortable when she has to reject someone might have myriad nervous gestures as she avoids giving you the bad news that you have not made the sale. She may even be quite jittery. In contrast, the confident person who feels she has the upper hand might not have any adaptors; you failed to close the deal and that’s that.
Barriers will come into play in an overt rejection. You will see the person turn away from you, block you with arms, or hold something in front of her. If you are enduring a slow death with the client, you might see the barriers mounting. They might go from crossed arms, all the way to the person going to the other side of a desk or table before you are dismissed.
Just as regulators of acceptance encouraged you to continue talking, regulators of rejection suggest it’s time for you to wrap it up in the hope of not souring your relationship with the prospect. Pursed lips, audible exhaling, head shaking, and rolling eyes are all signs that further words are not welcome from you.
Indecision
The movements and vocal responses suggesting indecision may involve questioning looks—raised brows, a thoughtful stare with brows drawn toward the center—interruptions, pauses that suggest the person is processing information, or facial expressions and movements that seem to challenge you.
Illustrators of indecision could include hands facing upward when asking a question or listening to you speak, as if to suggest “I need more.” You might also detect confusion, with hands curling or clenching because something isn’t clear, complete, or consistent with what the person presumed.
For a classic representation of adaptors of indecision, start with Auguste Rodin’s bronze sculpture The Thinker. The work shows a male figure with his chin resting on one hand as though deep in thought. If he were moving, he’d probably be stroking his chin. Remember what we said about the eye movement of calculation and analysis? It’s a look down and to the left. That’s probably what you would see along with the chin stroking. Some people have go-to adaptors whenever they are deep in thought; they immediately stroke their hair or tap a pen, for example.
Barriers may go away and come back in a state of indecision. When you see movement in the direction of acceptance, try to be cognizant of what you just said and did so you sustain that positive movement.
Similarly, regulators may go from encouraging your speaking to shutting you down if the prospect is in a state of indecision. You may see nods one minute and head shakes the next.
Deferral
Like the other three elements, there is a cognitive process going on, but there potentially a great deal of emotion as well. It all depends on what’s causing the person to want to defer a decision.
A prospect who feels a positive connection to you and your expertise, but not to your company or product, may be frustrated. She wants to do business with you, and is agitated that it’s not a good fit. She does not want to reject you in a face-to-face meeting and defers so that she can take an indirect approach through an email. It’s a passive-aggressive approach to rejection so you may see a fake, sustained smile as the person tries to hide her true feelings and intent. You would probably also get mixed signals from the body language—alternating enthusiasm with dropping energy, moving away from barrier and then using a barrier, and so on.
Another reason for deferral is that there is genuine uncertainty about whether or not make the purchase at this time. It could be a budgetary issue, changes in project requirements, or a host of other things. If you see the down left look of calculation periodically, that’s a sign that the person is trying to think through deal. It’s not necessarily avoidance of you, but rather that he’s giving consideration to facts and figures that you may be unaware of.
Deferral also can come out of distraction. Perhaps your meeting is at the end of the work day and your prospect knows he has to pick up his son after soccer practice. He’s professional enough to know that the discussion should be tabled for a time when he can focus on what you have to say. The connection will weaken, with loss of eye contact and you’ll see signs of the person preparing to leave the room. When you notice behavior like that, it’s always a good thing to ask, “Would you like to continue at another time?” Notice that this is one of those times when a straight yes or no answer is required. This is not the time to ask a narrative question.
Moods and Mental States
There are many variations on basic moods and mental states, of course, but we are focusing here on those most salient to the sales process. When you see the signs of feelings and judgments we associate with these negative concepts, they will impede your success unless you do something to counter them—to move responses back into positive territory. Conversely, you want to make the most of the signs of positive response.
In the rest of this chapter, we are looking solely at the signs of moods and mental states. When we move to Part II, we look at how you proactively handle the negative ones and exploit the positive ones. We give you tips and techniques to turn a sales encounter that has turned sour into one that yields sweet success.
Negative Moods and Mental States
Disapproval
You have concluded a lively discussion with the prospect about your public relations services. She seems truly engaged and even exudes confidence, mirroring your own confidence—these are good signs. Then she asks, “What will this campaign cost?” You tell her what your monthly retainer will be for the six-month program she appeared to buy into just moments ago.
You see a downward pull of the corners of the mouth and eyelids. Her energy level has suddenly plummeted. You see her index finger shoot up. Is she about to point at something or wag her finger at you? You keep watching and see (and hear) her blow air through her lips. Next, the mouth that had the corners drawn down becomes a straight line. She is moving from disapproval to a more resolutely negative response. She breaks eye contact with you, turning away as if to think. She looks down left, a sign that she is calculating.
Seeing signs of disapproval can only help you. You know when they showed up, so you know why they showed up. In this case, the prospect is more price-sensitive than you had suspected. The immediate task is to pull her back into the realm of positive responses; after that, you will address the price issue that provoked her display of disapproval.
Suspicion
Suspicion can reflect your prospect’s judgment that you aren’t telling the whole truth, that you do not really know what you’re talking about, or that you managed to get a meeting on false pretenses. There may be other reasons associated with the individual’s experiences and idiosyncrasies, but these three are the major ones.
In displaying suspicion, a person will generally look less energized than before, but the fire is there. He is now focused intently on you.
He may narrow his eyes, even to the point of a squint. The brows would be down in a challenging way, and one eyelid might even be squeezed shut. You would probably see barriers show up, too, such as angling the body away or placing something in front of him, maybe something like clasping hands in front of him or putting his hand over his mouth.
Confusion
A confused person doesn’t know where to focus her attention externally. She’s pulling into herself with all external signs exhibiting a sense of being scattered and incoherent.
This is a person who probably won’t sustain eye contact with you. Instead, you will see the eyes darting from you to others in the room, or perhaps from one object to another in the room.
Vocal expressions might include fillers like “um” and “ah” more frequently than before. You might also find the person repeating herself, which is one way of trying to anchor ideas that she thinks are important. These are ideas that she may be trying to articulate to bring herself, and you, back to a center point that makes sense to her.
You will most certainly see some adaptors, too. Those gestures that reflect some anxiety and are meant to have a soothing effect will show up as she tries to calm down from the stress of confusion. Playing with an earring, rubbing temples, licking her lips—these are all signs that the stress is there.
Her speech might slow down or be halting, too. Her brain is sorting through ideas, trying to create patterns, and that could mean that verbal skills will be impacted.
Distraction
Imagine all that internally focused energy associated with confusion and having it blast out externally. This is distraction: a person frantically looking for answers outside of himself, as opposed to internally. This is the cat following the ant crawling across the floor: She paws, stalks, and swats because the ant is the most interesting thing at the moment.
When you are having a sales encounter with someone who is pawing, stalking, and swatting at an “ant” on the floor, you have completely lost the connection with that person. Distraction can also manifest itself as a freeze response, meaning that they have so much focus on a person, object or idea, that they become extremely low-energy and don’t respond to you at all. The distraction may be that his eldest son is about to enter college and he’s wondering how in the world he can afford it.
Distracted people often mumble. Their deviation from baseline could include a lack of complete sentences, as well as a kind of mumbling body language—that is, they will abort or subdue illustrators. Someone who greeted you enthusiastically and seemed expressive in his movements may shows signs of being less in control and less focused on communicating with you.
Here’s another sign of a distracted person: He will pick a stray dog hair off his pants, or she will find a loose thread on her sweater to tuck in. If your prospect is really focused on your conversation, these things will not be noticed and they will not matter.
Embarrassment
A decidedly internal focus to the person’s energy occurs with a sense of embarrassment. No one expects to be embarrassed, so when this occurs, the person is caught off-guard. You may see physical signs such as blushing and itchy ears or nose, other results of increased blood flow.
A person who is embarrassed will also probably lower her head a bit and use other barriering postures to protect herself. They might be turning the shoulders away from you, not sustaining eye contact, and just shutting down movements in general to suggest that you need to keep your distance. She also might smile at you, but it isn’t the smile of someone who is inviting you to connect; it’s the smile of someone who is trying to mask discomfort.
You might also hear nervous laughter, see the person swallow hard, and observe an increase in the use of fillers in speech and adaptors in movement.
Condescension
In the case of condescension, the energy is clearly directed outward at you or whoever is doing the talking at the moment. This person is looking down the bridge of his nose at you, suggesting that you really need to reconsider what you just said or did because it was stupid.
The chin will either be pulled down toward the chest and the eyes will be on you in a judgmental way or the head will be held higher-than-usual. You might also notice the person who shows condescension peering over his glasses or “granting you an audience” by looking away from his phone or computer and suddenly paying more attention to what you’re saying.
Positive Moods and Mental States
With all of the positive moods and mental states, you’ll want to notice what triggered them, or if they were there throughout the meeting. If your entire sales encounter is a pleasant, reassuring experience in which everyone is smiling, then closing should be a given. You’ve found sales nirvana; good luck finding it again.
Delight
Look for a genuine smile, eye contact, and lack of signs of tension. There’s no need for barriers. Questions and comments will reflect real curiosity. The focus will be on you and the energy will be high.
Unless you’ve had a previous, positive experience with the prospect, the person isn’t likely to show delight until you prove you have the basics: relevant knowledge, sincerity, and professionalism. Note at what point barriers are reduced or removed, and when the exchange becomes a true dialogue. If moving to a particular topic area or making a shift in your presentation style—going to a white board, for example—seemed to trigger the person’s delight, that’s useful information if things don’t quite go your way later.
The person is at ease, showing no sense of threat. There is no need to barrier; adaptors are not necessary. Comfort is a relatively low energy mood, but in a good way. If you are on someone else’s turf making a presentation, it’s possible that she will feel comfortable from the beginning of the meeting.
Signs of comfort include fluid speech, mirroring, and receptivity to haptic communication (that is, touching). The handshake would not be forced, and if you happen to brush against each other while working on a chart on the whiteboard, for example, it would not feel awkward.
Watch out if the comfort level subsides. Remember what triggered it. Was it when you talked about price? Product features? Timetable for delivery? Other people on the team? Whatever disturbed the sense of comfort for the person is a hot button issue.
The Body Language Project offers an exhaustive list of terms and definitions on its website. It’s a helpful resource if you want to develop a body-language vocabulary. One of the terms defined there fits into this discussion because the concept of “comfort” does not carry a lot of power for people—yet it should: “Comfort dividend: A term that describes the payback received from building comfortable situations in business and in life in general. It stipulates that when you make your customers, friends, guests, patients and clients comfortable, you derive benefits that go beyond profits.”1
Hope
We are defining hope as anticipation of a good outcome. Questions are phrased in positive, non-confrontational way. The person seems to be looking at the bright side of whatever you’re saying. You say, “There is no guarantee of success with a public relations campaign.” She responds, “Of course not, but you have such a good track record!” Energy is high and focus is on you.
Be careful if you sense hope. This is a mental state that comes naturally to some people; it is their default. It does not mean that when the meeting is over, you have a deal. In addition to hope, you want to see signs of delight—an elevated energy level involving curiosity and buy-in—as added assurance that you are getting through and the message is well-received.
Safety
This is different from comfort because safety means a threat is averted or removed. If your customer seemed agitated or concerned when you arrived and, in the course of your conversation he seemed to relax, then you have eased some fears. At what point did that start to occur?
A person who feels under threat will focus energy internally. There will be a kind of volcanic state in which you perceive that there could be an eruption, but the negative energy is mostly “underground.” When you have moved this person toward a sense of safety, then you have established a trust between you that is the basis for a strong professional relationship. What you are offering—and the way you are offering it—give the person a reason to drop barriers, stop using adaptors, and make secure eye contact.
Certainty
The eyes are on you. Confidence comes through in bold illustrators. You sense energy and an external focus.
You will, no doubt, meet with many people who come across this way from the beginning and continue to project certainty through the meeting. That may be genuine or it may be an act.
If your prospect has a rehearsed certainty, it will not change no matter what you do—unless perhaps you do something truly awful and take him off guard. However, what you’re more likely to see is a person who shifts in and out of certainty.
When you share the feeling, you’ll see mirroring. When it wanes, you will likely see a break in eye contact, with the eyes going downward in an introspective manner.
Desire
The energy is focused on you and what you have to offer. Illustrators are decisive and they punctuate a verbal cue: “Let’s get this done!” Stop a moment to evaluate the happy atmosphere. In interpreting desire, you need to know who holds the position of authority at the moment; as we mentioned in the discussion on deference, this tends to shift back and forth in a sales encounter. In short, a customer who wants to close the deal quickly may have a desire to prevent you from recognizing some mistakes you’ve made, such locking in a price that’s lower than she expected.
In general, the desire to move forward in a sales situation involves allowing you, the sales professional, to enter a personal zone—this may be the simple act of handshaking after talking terms—and literally seeing eye to eye with you. Whether you are standing or seated, if your eyes on the same plane, you recognize each other as equals and are in position to forge a deal in which both of you feel good about it.
Going From Stress to Calm
Commonly, people associate fight, flight, or freeze responses with a significant event such as being held up at gunpoint. But different people have different thresholds for feeling fearful, as well as different reference points regarding fear. Basically, from the momentous to the relatively insignificant, anything that puts a person on “red alert” automatically activates the sympathetic nervous system so the body is ready for action. In a sales situation, either party could experience fight, flight, or freeze. The sales professional who realizes he has totally missed the mark in his presentation or the customer who feels psychologically assaulted by a sales pitch could both experience forms of it.
When some level of threat is perceived, changes occur inside and outside your body. If you can identify what you’re feeling, then you know if you’re going into a fight-flight-or-freeze state. If you know what to look for, then you know if someone else is experiencing that kind of tension.
When people confront a person or situation that makes them feel threatened, physiological changes such as these occur:
• You have little or no control over what happens because after the alarm goes off in your brain, it triggers a chain reaction.
• You start to produce more of the hormones adrenaline and cortisol. They kick-start the nervous system. Your heart beats faster.
• Blood leaves your face and skin, and pours into the muscles. Blood also leaves your digestive and immune systems. When they slow down, it helps you conserve energy; in a real threat situation, your body would be getting ready for the fight or the flight.
• You start breathing faster so you can take in more oxygen. Your metabolism gets a boost. Your body starts to sweat.
• Muscles tighten. You might clench your fists. Pupils dilate to collect information about the perceived threat.
These things can happen—to some degree—if a major client or customer says to you in a stern tone, “We need to talk.” They can happen to a direct report of yours who made a horrible mistake with a customer and sees you coming at her down the hall with an angry look on your face.
Let’s say your urgent need is to find out the exact nature and genesis of that person’s mistake. Your need will probably not be met if she goes into a state of fight, flight, or freeze. The person’s cognitive abilities are diminished. Emotions are in play.
A person who has entered a state of fight or flight, even a mild one, will have pounding of chest. His hands may shake. His breathing may become audible. You might see the lips pressed together to suggest he is holding something back.
What you are perceiving—or experiencing if it is happening to you—is a geared up sympathetic nervous system. The cure is to engage the parasympathetic nervous system.
What is the conversation motivator you need to use to trigger a response from the parasympathetic nervous system? It’s what we’ve labeled “easing fears” in Chapter 4. The person needs to feel protected. Unless and until that happens, the person will have a hard time making sense. You may not be hearing lies, but you may be hearing nonsense.
What’s the conversation motivator that might be a good follow-up? Boosting ego. After the shaking is gone and the breathing is more normal, you may even see the glimmer of a smile. You’ve established that being in your company means “safe haven.” At this point, you might just want to be quiet. Show you are listening and wait for the person to start talking.
If you see a little nervousness creeping in again, employ the “incentive” conversation motivator by using a little quid pro quo to bring the person toward you again.
Are you manipulating the conversation to get the information you want? Yes. But you’re doing it in a really nice way.
Now let’s say that you’re the one who’s in a mild state of fight, flight, or freeze. Here’s what you should do:
• Deliberately slow your breathing.
• Do something physical. Do not hesitate to say, “Excuse me just a moment. I’m going to go grab some water. Can I get you something?” You need to move around a bit.
• If you’re sitting down, order your muscles to relax. Drop your shoulders, sit up straight so your neck is stretched out. Open your hands. Put your feet flat on the floor.
• Put your brain into an analytical mode. Focus on the other person’s body language. Is he tense, too? Is he doing anything, deliberately or inadvertently, that is triggering a stress response in you? Are there verbal cues the person is using that are setting you off? Is it the power this person has in your life that’s making you stress out?
If you can get out of the room gracefully, then try to find a private spot like the bathroom. Take a deep breath and throw your arms in the air with tremendous power. Straighten up so you feel as strong and in control as possible. Smile. The combination of putting your backbone and arms into an explosive maneuver is called a “power posture.” Rest a few seconds and do it again until you feel like your head is clear and your personal power is flowing through your body. Then go back to the room.
You may not need to do this power move because you’re already there and supremely confident. But maybe you know someone who could use it. It can trigger a significant state change by replacing the perception of weakness with the feeling of strength. In general, it accelerates a person’s ability to alleviate a fight, flight, or freeze response and restore a feeling of being calm and centered.
Summary Points
• Each of the Big Four—illustrators, regulators, barriers, and adaptors—can signal the four key responses during a sales encounter: acceptance, rejection, indecision, and deferral.
• They can also help you get a good reading on the mood and mental state of the individual. Main negative ones to consider are disapproval, suspicion, confusion, distraction, embarrassment, or condescension. Main positive ones to consider are delight, comfort, hope, safety, certainty, and desire.
• You need to pay attention to your moods and mental states as much as your prospect’s or customer’s. Be aware of what causes a fight-flight-or freeze response for you and how you can counter it.