PMG Power Blog: The Power of Confidence

While your mouth is busy saying words, your body is busy talking to your clients, and unless you’re in control of what your body is doing, it’s telling your clients everything you don’t want them to know. Do you fear you aren’t a good enough salesperson to pull off the big sale? Do you question yourself or your product? Do you let customers intimidate you?

The way you stand, speak and even look at a customer tells them all of this and more. If you want to succeed at sales, you have to learn how to use your body language to showcase confidence in yourself, your abilities and, of course, your products.

People rarely follow those who are insecure, self-doubting or who continually question themselves even after making a decision. Think about it this way: if you don’t believe in yourself and your abilities, why should anyone else? This is especially true in the world of sales. Without confidence in yourself and your product, you are likely to fail.

Of course, this is just one part of the equation. Once you understand it, you enter the next difficult part—showing your customers an air of confidence without looking—or acting—cocky.

To accomplish this:

• Your body language is vital. Stand straight. Lean forward slightly to indicate interest and engagement. Remember, slouching and swaying may signal weakness.
  
  
• Occasionally tilt your head slightly to engage the customer and appear more friendly and interested.
  
  
• Don’t fidget with paperwork or products as it makes you appear self-conscious.
  
  
• Relax your mouth. Tightly pursed lips make you appear disapproving, but keep in mind that lips that are too relaxed may signal sadness, apathy or depression.
  
  
• Keep your arms open and inviting. Never cross them in front of your body or tense your arms while speaking to a client. It creates an adversarial mood.
  
  
• Have a great handshake. The keys to a good handshake are:
  -  having a dry palm;
   
  -  making palm-to-palm contact;
  
  -  keeping your wrist and fingers firm, not like a fish ready to          slither out of the other person’s grip; and
  
  - firmly holding the other individual’s hand while pumping up and down
    no more than three times.
  
  
• Maintain a comfortable amount of direct eye contact to showcase confidence to those around you.

Clearly, several factors affect how confident you appear to your prospects and clients, and it is important not to show intimidation or weakness. So, yet another way to help you exude confidence is to leverage all of the resources and materials available to you. By doing so, you will be able to uncover all of your clients’ needs, including those they have not yet mentioned. Thus, you can be confident you are offering them expertise in every aspect of their life in which you can have a positive influence.

P.S. - If you happen to be a life insurance producer, then I invite you to join our upcoming webinar during which we will discuss resources and materials you are not likely utilizing. You can click here to register.

Submitted by: Dennis M. Postema, President & CEO of Postema Marketing Group, LLC

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