No Second Chances with First Impressions

Like Michelle, we all make snap judgments when we first meet people. These judgments, which are both imperfect and emotional, have a lasting impact on how we view and interact with others. In Michelle's case, first impressions caused her to end up paying more for the same product because she liked Gwen more than she liked Ray.

Your prospects make these same imperfect judgments about you.

First impressions are about likability, and likability is the gateway to building emotional connections with stakeholders. When stakeholders like you, the probability increases that they will be open to answering your questions and engaging in a conversation.

Unlike trust, being perceived as likable or unlikable occurs in mere moments and begins in your stakeholders' subconscious—long before they are aware of how they feel about you at the conscious level. Ray, the rep who turned Michelle off, is the poster child for the saying, “You never get a second chance to make a great first impression.”

The word likable is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as having qualities that bring about a favorable regard. We all, to some extent, have qualities and characteristics that make us naturally likable to certain types of people and personalities, though at the same time we possess qualities that make us naturally unlikable to others (see the next chapter, on flexing your style).

The problem we face in sales is we don't always get to choose those with whom we interact. Many of the people we encounter will not be naturally attracted to us. Complicating things more are the preconceived perceptions that all people bring into relationships. These perceptions, which include but are not limited to cultural, racial, and socioeconomic biases, are also beyond our control.

There was just “something” about Ray that Michelle didn't like. That “something” could be that he reminded her of a bully back in grade school, a bad date in college, or a sales rep who broke a promise in the past. Perhaps she didn't like his facial expressions, attitude, accent, tone of voice, tie, eye contact, or posture.

The point is, there are myriad reasons a prospect may not like you, and many of the reasons are completely outside of your control. Therefore, when you meet new prospects, it's critical that you control the aspects of likability that are within your power to control.

Likability: The Gateway to Emotional Connections

Sergeant Lentz leaned through the window of the truck. His eyes darted away as he admitted the truth. He was under heavy pressure because he'd missed his recruiting mission two months in a row, and as he neared the end of the quarter it looked certain that he was going to roll another zero month.

Desperate for help, he'd flagged me down after training. He explained that he'd left his last 11 recruiting meetings without getting a commitment for a next step. “I just don't understand it,” he said, almost pleading. “I tell them all about the National Guard and why they should join, and then nothing. They say, ‘Thanks for the information,’ and the conversation is over.”

“Sergeant Lentz,” I asked, “when you think back on those meetings, who is doing most of the talking—you, the parents, or their kid?”

He took a step back from the truck and looked down at his boots. “I guess I am,” he replied softly.

Connect

Sergeant Lentz, like so many salespeople, has a problem—a problem that is easily fixable but nonetheless a problem. When the parents and kids to whom he's selling the National Guard ask the question “Do I like you?” about Sergeant Lentz, the answer is “No.”

Now don't get me wrong. Sergeant Lentz is a very likable man. He's polite, nice, and funny, and he cares deeply about his mission to recruit young men and women into the National Guard. What makes him unlikable is his approach.

The connecting step in the sales process is designed to win other people over by making them feel that they are the center of your attention—to make them feel significant or important. Your objective is to initiate and then over time nurture a deep emotional connection. The gateway to emotional connections is likability.

Emotional connections are crucial to influencing the decisions and behaviors of stakeholders. As these connections grow stronger, they anchor stakeholders to you and cause your message to feel more credible to them because as they like you more and become familiar with you, they naturally move you into their in-group.

The in-group preference, sometimes called the similarity bias, causes your stakeholders to believe that people who are more familiar or more like them are more trustworthy, believable, and better than people who are not. You know this to be true as surely as you know the sun will come up in the morning, because you face and fight this bias every day of your life.

Each of us lives and operates in a familiarity bubble. We are more comfortable with people, places, and things inside our familiarity bubble and less comfortable with things outside our familiarity bubble. Your ultimate goal in the sales process is to move into your stakeholder's bubble of familiarity and in-group through an emotional connection.

Of course, we know that likability alone is not a guarantee that a stakeholder will advocate for you or buy from you. It takes more. People buy from people they like, trust, and believe will solve their problems. Thus, execution of the sales process and alignment of the three processes of sales are critical to positive sales outcomes.

Likability comes first, though. Likability is the gateway to connections, familiarity, and moving into your stakeholder's in-group. If you are not likable, you have no chance. Stakeholders don't buy from salespeople they don't like.

Think for a moment about what makes another person likable. Likable people are nice, polite, respectful, courteous, thoughtful, and confident; they have a positive disposition, have an appealing outward appearance, smile (in person), have a positive, upbeat tone of voice (phone), flex their style, and listen.

They demonstrate that they like us by giving us their sincere attention and listening. We tend to like people who like us.

Now, think about most salespeople. Most salespeople are nice, polite, respectful, and relatively confident; they are positive, look good, smile, and sound great on the phone. In general, most salespeople easily pull off these likable behaviors except for one.

They talk instead of listen.

Pitch Slapping

Nobody likes a pitch. Not you, not me, not your prospects. Look at it this way. If you could choose to hang out with people who spent the entire time you were together talking about themselves or a person who invested the time listening to you, which would you choose? For most people that choice is easy and obvious.

The struggle Sergeant Lentz was facing is the exact same problem thousands of salespeople share. They show up, throw up, and are flabbergasted that their prospects don't respond with open arms. Instead of building emotional connections, they pitch slap stakeholders and turn them off.

Most stakeholders reluctantly give up their time to meet with you. Stakeholders are crazy busy and not interested in meeting with mouthy salespeople, because in their experience these meetings are a painful waste of time.

During initial meetings, stakeholders keep their emotional wall up and you at arm's length. To bend win probability in your favor, you'll need to lower the wall.

Yet when your stakeholder is hesitant to engage, the situation is uncomfortable and awkward. You ask questions and get clipped answers. It's like the words in the old James Taylor song “Mexico”—you send a long letter and get back a postcard. Times are hard.

In this emotionally uncomfortable situation, average salespeople succumb to disruptive emotions and impatiently shift from questions to pitching, effectively killing engagement and discovery. It's not that these salespeople are clueless. They know what to do. They're just so overwhelmed by emotions that they don't do it. These emotions include:

• Fear of the unknown: Since the salespeople don't know what the prospect might say, they dominate the conversation to feel safe.
• Attachment to control: Salespeople falsely believe that to be in control they must be doing the talking.
• Uncomfortable with silence: Whenever there is silence, the salesperson fills in the void with words.
• Impatience: The salesperson gets frustrated with the stakeholder's short answers or slow pace and takes over the conversation.
• Need for significance: The salesperson doesn't feel important when the stakeholder is talking, so they interrupt to prove how smart they are.

Meanwhile, within this arc of disruptive emotions, the stakeholder's negativity bias is kicking in. Their subconscious mind is homing in on and amplifying the things about you that they don't like and magnifying the things about you that are different from them. They don't know why, but there is something about you that “they just don't like.”

At the conscious level, a salesperson droning on and on about their company and product features is emotionally excruciating. The stakeholder begins to consciously seek an escape. People don't buy from people they don't like, and they don't like salespeople who pitch slap them.

Ultra-high performers feel these same disruptive emotions. We all do. The difference is that they are aware of how destructive the behaviors spawned by these emotions are to stakeholder relationships. Even when the stakeholder prompts them with an “Okay, tell me what you've got,” they resist the open invitation to pitch and instead ask questions to get the other person talking.

Ten Keys to Being More Likable

Answering your stakeholder's question “Do I like you?” is way deeper, more complex, and far more important than most salespeople consider. Being likable requires effort, strategy, and intentional focus.

1. Smile. A pleasant, sincere smile is the best way to make a great first impression. Humans are naturally attracted to other humans who are smiling. So be aware of your facial expression, and put a smile on your face.

2. Voice tone. Like smiling, your voice tone and inflection can cause a stakeholder to instantly like or dislike you. Your voice should be as neutral and free of regional dialects as possible, friendly, and upbeat. Put a smile on your face and it will shine through your voice.

3. Be polite. I saw a bumper sticker once that said, “Mean People Suck.” People who are rude, impolite, and discourteous are unlikable. Unless you were raised in a barn by animals, someone taught you basic manners. Put those manners to work in all interactions with stakeholders. They will notice.

4. Dress. Despite the admonition “Don't judge a book by its cover,” people do and will judge you based on what you wear, what you drive, and your grooming and appearance. This judgment about whether to like you based on appearance happens in the subconscious before your stakeholder is consciously aware of how they feel. If you engage in face-to-face sales conversations (including video calls), dress well. Wear the best and most professional garments you can. Ensure that they are clean and pressed, and put you in the very best light.

5. Grooming. Look your best. Ensure that you smell good and that your cologne or perfume is not overpowering. Ensure that your hair, facial hair, and nails are clean, cut, clipped, and manicured. If you have tattoos, cover them up. Yes, tats are more acceptable today than ever before; however, they can potentially turn off stakeholders who don't consider them appropriate. No one ever said, “I didn't buy because my rep didn't have a neck tattoo.”

6. Attention focus. In today's demanding work environment, it is easy to become distracted. Jim Rohn said, “Wherever you are, be there.” This is essential advice when it comes to first impressions. You must develop the self-discipline to shut everything else out and remain completely focused on your stakeholder.

7. Style. People tend to be attracted to and more trusting of people who are like themselves (similarity bias). Therefore, when you flex your preferred or dominant communication style to complement that of the other person, you are more similar and therefore more likable.

8. Language. When you speak other people's language, they readily pull you into their in-group. Shifting your words, jargon, and approach even slightly to better match the language of stakeholders has a big impact on likability.

9. Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm (passion) for your product, service, and company sells. Enthusiasm is transferable and infectious. Your enthusiasm is driven by your attitude and beliefs, so it is critical to work consistently to build and retain a winning attitude. One note, though: there are few things more off-putting than insincere enthusiasm, so be careful not to get carried away.

10. Confidence. Weak people repel. Arrogant people are turn-offs. Confident people attract.

Connecting Is the Gateway to Lowering Emotional Walls and Discovery

When people feel connected to you, they feel more comfortable revealing their real problems. Emotional connections trump demographic differences and subconscious biases that are beyond your control. The objective of the connect step in the sales process is to:

• Gain control of the sales conversation.
• Shape (or begin the process of shaping) the buying process.
• Build credibility and generate enough interest to move to the next step.
• Make the buyer or stakeholder feel important.
• Lower emotional walls so the stakeholder feels more comfortable sharing information.
• Open the door to discovery.

The commercial sales relationship does not begin on a footing of trust. Stakeholders are naturally wary of salespeople and are focused on protecting their self-interest. They bring into any new sales relationship subconscious cognitive biases, emotions, and all the baggage—good and bad—from previous interactions with salespeople and vendors.

Your stakeholders naturally believe (negativity bias) that your intent is to extract as much money as possible from them, and anything they say will be held against them. Therefore, they hold their cards close to the vest.

Connecting is about minimizing the emotional roadblocks that get in the way of transparency, honest communication, and understanding. In all relationships—business and personal—the more connected you feel to another person, the more you are willing to reveal your true feelings, challenges, issues, fears, wants, needs, and problems.

With most stakeholders, the layers are deep and almost impossible to reach without an emotional connection. Unless they feel some sort of connection with you, they'll be reticent to reveal their real problems and motivations. Salespeople who come off as insincere and manipulative in those initial conversations tend to anchor buyers to this state and never earn entry into the stakeholder's in-group.

One ultra-high-performance sales professional I interviewed has a rule of thumb. If she cannot connect with her stakeholder emotionally, she will disengage and move on to another opportunity.

She says that experience has taught her that if the person she is dealing with does not relate to her for any reason, win probability plummets and her chances of closing the sale are virtually zero, no matter how well her package solves problems or meets the buyer's needs.