IP marketers spend a good deal of time thinking about what they are going to say before meeting a prospect — but how many think about how they will look? More specifically, says network marketing trainer Tim Sales, “there is a group of [facial] characteristics a . . . business professional must possess in order to truly have success with speaking to prospects.” Sales calls these characteristics “Communication Qualities.” One such quality, for example, involves having comfortable eye contact with a sincere, friendly facial expression. If you are truly interested in your prospect (1st quality) and you’re not distracted by anything in the environment (2nd quality), this also includes not being distracted by what’s going on inside of you, Sales explains. “Therefore, because you are just simply interested in your prospect, you can’t help but have a sincere, friendly facial expression,” he says. The biggest obstacle to maintaining this expression, he says, is fear. As you talk with a prospect, you may be fearful of how they will react to your invention, or your pitch. “So [your] face would have the look of fear or concern . . . describing what is going on in [your] head,” Sales notes. “The second thing that stops a person from having this desired facial expression is that they’ve been given some lame advice about mirroring and matching every move their prospect makes,” he continues. “Or the advice that they should always maintain eye contact, and they take this to an extreme and end up boring holes through their prospect, which intimidates them.” Finally, says Sales, you should maintain a friendly facial expression even when you’re on the phone calling prospects. “Even though they can’t see you, your expression carries through your voice and the words you say,” he explains.

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Posted January 6th, 2009 under Intellectual Property Marketing

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