How Your Non-Verbal Communication Impacts Sales

Kathryn Thompson  00:00

INTRO

Welcome back, super stoked that you're tuning in to this week's episode. And I cannot wait to dive into today's topic, because we are talking about the nonverbal and how that impacts your ability to create a connection with your audience to build that know, like and trust to attract the right people into your business and not repel them. So if you're currently in a situation where you feel like the sales aren't coming through, or it takes a lot of work to attract people or get people to buy from you, or you feel like you're attracting the wrong type of people, or you just feel really disconnected from your audience, for whatever reason, you're not getting the engagement, maybe not the open rates on your email, people aren't clicking through, you just don't really have that connection, you feel like you're just broadcasting a message out. This podcast episode is going to break down what's happening behind the scenes in your nonverbal, that could be impacting that connection forming with your audience. And by nonverbal, I mean, eye contact, facial expression, the energetics behind the emails that you're sending the strategies that you're using its facial expression, I think I said body language, right? 

It's all of the factors that play into communicating before you ever say a word. And 93% of communication is actually done nonverbal. And I'm going to share a really funny story, just start because this just shows you how your nonverbal can be saying one thing and what you were saying Word Wise, but also what you believe in your heart. isn't, isn't in alignment with what your body's saying. So I was out for drinks with friends. And a friend of mine was looking to hire somebody for her business that we knew that I grew up with. And she was asking me about this person, like, Is this person a good person? Do you think they would be a good fit for my company? How do you think they'll fit in with their culture, I was sharing openly what I thought and I actually really adore this person. And I think they're amazing, and they would be a great fit. And we were talking about that and whether or not they'd be in alignment. 

But in my subconscious, and in my brain memories of our growing up came to cut, we're flooding through visually, right? And she was asking me questions about whether this person would be a good fit. And I was in my brain going through a lot of the memories that we had. And it wasn't that I didn't agree with the memories. I was just shaking my head, like, Oh, my God, I can't believe we did that. Or I can't believe that's what we went through her. I can't believe that. And so my body was shaking, my head was shaking. No. And I didn't even realize it was happening. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere. She said, Are you lying to me? And I was like, no, why? And she said, Well, you keep shaking your head. And so it's just telling me that you don't think this person is a good fit. And I was like, Oh my God, no, I think they're a great fit. I was just literally visually going through like some of the memories we had, I was just like shaking my head, oh my god. So that is how impactful your body language can be. That it's telling a story that maybe you're not ultimately feeling or thinking on the inside or even communicating on the outside, right, I was telling this person, my friend, how amazing this other person I knew that we grew up with would be for her company. And my body was shaking. No, because I had this other thing. I was processing these memories, I was processing about us growing up and the things we had done and experienced. 

And I was shaking my head no and sort of like a funny like, oh my god, we were such goofballs, or, you know, we did some really crazy things or whatever it was. And so that's how impactful your body language can be, and how it will actually speak way louder than your words. And if they're not in alignment, your people are going to feel that they're going to see it, they're going to sense it. And I knew my friend really well. So she was calling me on it because she knew me really well. But your customers and your audience won’t know you that well. Or they might have just come into your world and they're not going to call you on it, they're not going to pick the phone up and say, Hey, business owner, your body language or you know, doesn't really resonate with what you're saying they're not they're just going to move on. Right? Whereas my friend, we're sitting there having drinks in a bar and having a good time.

 And she knows me really well and can and trust that so she was able to call me out in it and in a nice way of going hey, wait a minute like you keep shaking your head know what's going on your audience and your clients aren't going to do that. So what impacts the nonverbal? Well, I just shared with you one thing that can impact it right? You could be in a conversation with somebody and not be 100% present and have other things being thought about, and memories or thoughts or ideas or what's going on at home or, you know, things that are going sideways in your relationships personally, or whatever it might be, you could be having a conversation with clients or customers, but you are somewhere else. And that will ultimately impact the nonverbal because like I just shared with you, I started to shake my head, no, even though I was presently sitting there, you know, having a conversation with my friend, I was thinking about something totally different. So that's one thing that can happen if you're not 100% present in the moment. And really focusing on the person you're trying to connect with or communicate with your nonverbal can say something totally different. The other really big one, when it comes to nonverbal is your own inner belief about what you're selling that conviction, do you believe in it? Do you believe in what you're able to deliver? And this was a big one for me when I made the shift from my brick-and-mortar, selling our products-based product to a service. And specifically group coaching programs, or mentorship or coaching. And here's why. 

With the brick and mortar, I was so clear, I had the conviction, the belief, I knew exactly what we were delivering. And I knew the quality of product we were delivering. And I could stand wholeheartedly behind that, that naturally just drew people into my energy to my aura to my business. And they could see the belief and the passion. And I once had a gentleman in my brick-and-mortar say to me, you're a phenomenal salesperson. And I cringed at that because I was like how am I a phenomenal salesperson, like I don't want to be the car salesperson, I don't want to be the sleazy person, right? We all have those nightmares. And so I asked him, I said, Well, what makes me a great salesperson. He was like your passion and your conviction for what you're selling. And he would come into the store, and he would repurchase even though he tell his wife, when he laughed, I'm not buying any more wine. And then he would come and I would talk about this new one that we made. And I had it with steak, and it was phenomenal. And I would just be having conversation and talking passionately about the wine. And he'd ultimately sign up and buy. And that's because of the passion and the conviction that I had within myself, it was unwavering. That is probably one of the biggest mistakes that I see people make is that they're not 100% convicted in what they're selling and what they're saying. And they doubt themselves, or they doubt the product, or they doubt their ability to deliver. 

And that self talk. And that self belief will come out in everything that you're doing and your nonverbal. And so you could have the perfectly scripted sales copy, you could have the perfectly scripted emails, social media content, you could have executed the strategy that you're employing so phenomenally, but if you doubt what you're doing, and you doubt it and you constantly question yourself, Will people buy will this work? What if this doesn't work that's going to be omitted out in your nonverbal. And I often will say passion and conviction will sell any day of the week over that perfectly scripted sales or emails or whatnot. And this was the biggest challenge for me when I moved from my brick and mortar to my to the online business and predominantly around group coaching and mentorship. Because in my one to one copywriting donoughue copy, I was still delivering a product, I could still back it, I knew that I had the control over what I was doing, right. So my conviction in that it was like I know what I'm delivering. I know I deliver really epic copy, and I and I'm solid in that. So I could sell that effortlessly and have been selling it effortlessly. 

But when it comes to mentorship and coaching, there's less control in delivering a final product because your mentees ultimately have to go and do the work. And so for the longest time, I would waffle or wobble in that conviction because I was like I can't really promise that somebody's going to get 10k months or attract, you know, 100 more clients into their business or whatever. Like I can't stand behind that from an integrity perspective and ultimately promised that because I don't know what they're going to do with the information, the coaching, the mentorship. I don't know how they're going to ultimately apply it like if I was in their business doing it for them. I know I could stand behind it. There was this tangibility piece that I was unable to have that conviction with and so for the longest time, selling my group coaching program or my mentorship felt really hard. Did I sell it absolutely. Did I help people achieve amazing results? Absolutely. However, I still didn't have the 100% conviction in it. 

And I know that that ultimately blocked sales from coming in because I wasn't super solid, on whether or not people could get the results. And ultimately, at the end of the day, if you are a mentor, or a coach or anything like that, there is a level of responsibility that you show up and deliver what you promise. But it's ultimately up to your clients to do the work, they have to meet you 5050. And this is where you can go sideways as a coach or a mentor is not having a solid promise of what you're willing to deliver and what you're here to deliver and the responsibility that you're bringing to the table, versus what you expect and the responsibility of your clients. That's the one thing that really helped me move past that block of the conviction piece. And the and the self belief of what I'm able to deliver when it came to coaching was getting really solid on the promise that I promised to do X, Y, and Z. But you as the client have to also show up and do X, Y, and Z. And when you do that, you will be able to create epic results that really helped me move past that block. But that is what will emit out into your ether your aura. If you're not 100% convicted and what you're selling, if you're not 100% solid on what you're doing. The other thing that I often see as predominantly in the online space, but we've been taught this in marketing is like you've got to be polarizing, in order to be different, and polarization is beautiful. But what tends to happen that I see a lot happening with content and content creation predominantly is this righteousness, this, I am right and you're wrong. 

And that comes out again, it can come out in your tone of voice, but can also come out in the tone of voice in your written word write words, when you're writing a story or an email, there's a certain tone to that. And that's your nonverbal coming out, subconsciously, whatever that is. And if you feel like you're having to convince people or prove that you know what you're talking about, that can come out in a very condescending or righteous way without you even knowing it. And that's a subconscious block, right. And a lot of people, a lot of us have self worth or self, you know, I'm not enough. And this doesn't just go for, you know, people with low self worth, you know, it can go for high achievers, as well. And I think this is a subtlety with high achievers, to be honest, is that High achievers often have this very high standard of what they're trying to achieve and what they're trying to meet. And often times things are never good enough. So there's this energy of needing to prove needing validation from people outside. 

And when we carry that energy within ourselves, when we haven't sort of solidified within ourselves, that we are enough just as we are and that the work that we're producing is a form of self-expression. And the work that we're here to do on this planet is a form of self-expression. And we're doing the best that we can with what we have, then, we're ultimately going to likely come across with this sort of righteousness, I'm right, you're wrong. And that's where we get we get it wrong with the whole polarization. We can be different and offer a different perspective, while also accepting other people's goals and beliefs. Not everyone's going to have the same values and goals and beliefs as us. And it's not our job to make everybody have the same beliefs and goals and values as us. It's to, if you're a coach or a mentor in any capacity, it's to help shift perspective and shift beliefs that might be holding people back. But ultimately, at the end of the day, there's no force there. Right. And that can that's why polarizing content can come across as sort of condescending or proving or convincing. 

So if you feel like you're constantly proving I just want you to ask yourself, in your content in your emails or whatever. Where do I feel like I'm needing to convince my audience that what I have is a value. We can see this with product-based businesses too, by the way, where one product is pitting their product against somebody else's, that polarization right can be a massive turnoff for your clients to be honest. When other people are calling other people out in the industry, right when you're calling out your competitors going we have a way better product And then our competitors. No offense, but there's nothing attractive about that. There's nothing attractive about that people think that that is an attractive way to stand out and be different. And I saw this so prevalently in our brick and mortar, I had never in all of my life experienced the polarization to this degree of righteousness, or I'm right, you're wrong, I'm better your products way worse than in the brick and mortar world that I was in, we were in did custom wine. We produce wine at a small batch and small batches and the competitors in our local market, it was just so I would say volatile in a way. 

But I mean, we would have competitors coming into our store regularly trying to like scoop what we were doing. And, you know, talk about their business, when I had customers in the store, like it was crazy, I had never experienced anything of that, or leaving negative reviews on Google, we had one of the owners of one of the stores leave a negative review on our Google page like it was, it was absolutely bonkers. And what this does, and I'll be really honest with you is is that it turns people off actually, right, you think you're doing yourself, a good for your business, right to be able to showcase and tell people why your product or service is better compared to your competitors. And what ends up happening is it turns people away, especially if, if you're doing it to try and pull loyal customers from another business, it's the worst thing that you can do. And again, that is emitted in a lot of ways through the energy in which you're showing up, right, if you're showing up to tear somebody else down, or you're showing up to prove people wrong, or you're showing up to try to heavily convince people that what they're doing and the way they believe and the way they're showing up isn't the right way and that they need to follow you. That's going to repel people, ultimately, and this is the impact of your nonverbal. So I want to leave you with just some questions that you can start to sort of ask yourself because it can come across in tone of voice as well, right? 

When you're speaking, if you're doing a live video, or whatnot, it can come across in your tone of voice. Another big one that I see often is like the people pleaser, or the person that needs that outside validation can overcome eunuch eight can over deliver can over serve, because they're like, I need these people to get the value, I need these people to, you know, walk away thinking that I've given them like, all this amazing value, that they've taken all these golden nuggets away from me. And that oftentimes, we can say a lot less and still have the pungent impact than if we then if we're needing to communicate over and over and over again. So I'm want to leave you with some questions that you can start to kind of ask yourself is, the big one is is like, start to monitor, and have the awareness of what you're ultimately saying to yourself, because your words create a biochemical response in the body of the person receiving them, which oftentimes we think about our clients and customers, right? So we're like, okay, the words I'm using is creating a biochemical response in in them receiving that message. 

But it also creates a biochemical response within yourself, if you are constantly talking smack to yourself, that's ultimately going to play a factor in again, your posture, how confidently you show up and pitch what you have. How you, you know, your facial expressions, your eye contact, right, if you're constantly shifting your eye or your, you know, deflecting what you do and how brilliant you are, because you don't want the spotlight on you, that can all come out with the fact of what you're saying to yourself internally. So the first thing I want you to do is like, how am I talking to myself? What are the thoughts that are running through my brain? When I think about what I offer a product or service, when I think about my business, when I think about how how I run my business, a big one I hear from a lot of my clients is like I'm not a good business person. I'm not good at marketing and sales that ended up yourself is creating a biochemical response within yourself. And you will start your thoughts start to create your emotions and your emotions start to create your reality. 

And that's going to be emitted out into your aura. Like if you're not confident in what you do. If you don't think you're a good business owner if you don't think you're good at marketing and sales if you don't think you know if you start to think that you're it's it's a belief that you have that you're going to start to to emit outwards and people feel that conviction and that passion or they don't feel it because you don't have it right there's this waffling or wobbling that's happening in your energy that is affecting whether or not people are attracted to you ultimately. So that's the first thing that I would have you ask yourself is like, I keep an inventory, you know, you can keep a journal or an inventory every day. Or maybe just catch the awareness of like, Oh, what am I? What am I saying to myself? But what am I also sending out into reality? Right? What am I? What am I telling myself about myself about my business, about my products and services? And just keep an inventory? 

Because I think when you keep an inventory of that, it's it starts to be very visual of like, what is actually going on? The second thing is, is that is where are you trying to prove or convince your clients or customers, your audience that what you have is a value? That energy of convincing, again, comes out in that nonverbal? And in that communication of righteousness, I'm right, you're wrong. Where are you may be trying to people please, in your communication, right? Are you over, there's this whole thing of under deliver over, over promise under deliver what under deliver over promise that's the same, right, it's like, under deliver over promise. But oftentimes, what happens with a lot of people pleasers is that they over deliver, over give over deliver and ultimately at the end of the day, either the people are walking away, not like overwhelmed with what you're you're providing, or they're not going to walk away happy anyways, like you're trying to people, please. But at the end of the day, you're getting more complaints or more people that aren't satisfied and all of that sort of thing. So where are you over? Communicating? 

Where are you over justifying? Were you trying to make people understand what you have to say? The other big one that I want you to sort of like take inventory with when it comes to your, your non your nonverbal and what you're saying and how you're saying it is? Where do you ultimately sort of doubt yourself and anything that you're delivering? Where where is it that you know, you're questioning? If it's going to work? Am I able to receive? Am I scared of success? Right? Lots of people shut themselves down nonverbally, right? We, we say we want the five clients, we say we want the x dollar in sales. But subconsciously, we actually don't want it. And so energetically, we're putting that out into the ether of like, I'm saying, I want the thing. And I'm I'm employing and implementing, like everybody tells me I need to. But internally, my body's like, I don't, I don't know how to handle 10 more people into my business, I don't know how to sustainably handle 50 or 100. More, right? I see this a lot with high achievers. 

They say they want the thing. But ultimately, they're blocking their ability to receive the thing because they really know their nervous system doesn't want, it doesn't think they can handle it. They don't think that they can handle it. And that's the story that they're telling themselves. So these are some prompts some things that you can start to consider within your nonverbal? And where are you? Maybe not 100% present in your communications, right? Are you just going through the motions are you trying to get the piece of content out or the email sent, but you're also thinking about 1000 different things that are going on in your life and and in your world. And you're just doing it because you're just checking something off a box, and there's no real you're not really speaking from the heart, you're not really sharing what's on your heart, ultimately, because at the end of the day, communication from the heart is the thing that's going to connect with other people. And the final thing that I want to leave you with is like, where aren't you speaking from the heart? 

Where are you hiding or protecting yourself, or, you know, putting up a bit of a barrier energetically, because you're scared of judgment, rejection, you don't maybe feel safe and in sharing, ultimately, who you are and what you stand for. And being vulnerable in that and speaking your truth, right. Because of something that has happened in life, maybe it's you've been told you were too much. Or maybe you were told, you know, to be quiet 99.9% of the time growing up because all you did was talk and you are high energy. You know, there's a lot of reasons that can impact why we maybe dim our light or don't shine as bright or don't speak our truth. So it boils down to that whole safety piece, right? Where are you being trying to protect yourself. So I hope that episode has helped sort of shed a light on the nonverbal and how that's ultimately impacting and how the words and the things you say to yourself, are create that biochemical response in your body that ultimately impacts the energy that you're putting out.

Now on to episode number 76, we're going to dive into the power of storytelling and how to use that in your content so that you can evoke emotion with your clients and your customers. So that you can remove that invisible barrier that we just talked about within your nonverbal, right of like not really fully being seen for who you are, and speaking your truth, but also how to do it in a creative way that stands out from everybody else in the industry. Story is one of the most powerful ways number one to create connection, and build that know like and trust with your people. But it also is a really powerful way to stand out because your stories, your creative stories, your life experiences, all of those sorts of things can't be duplicated or replicated, right, which is what we see a lot in the online space, predominantly, there's a lot of replication, there's a lot of emulation, and not necessarily an A people are doing it maliciously. But it just happens, right? 

We learn from those that we see around us, those that are successful around us. And I want to share with you how you can infuse us with your life experiences, not just things that you've overcome like this, you know, doom and gloom story of like I was here in the lowest part of my life. And now I've overcome the thing. And these are the lessons I've learned, but how to actually take life experiences that are happening right now.

Maybe it's an experience with a taxi driver, maybe it's an experience you've had traveling, maybe it's an interaction you had at the frickin grocery store, like how to take these real-life experiences that are happening at the moment right now and turn those into really powerful fucking stories for your content that is going to really help you create that connection with your audience build that know like and trust factor, but also set you apart in your industry and have you being different than all of the other people so be sure to tune into that episode when it drops next week.