فصل 04

4

TONALITY AND BODY LANGUAGE

SO LET’S GET DOWN TO brass tacks.

How do you convince your prospects that you’re sharp as a tack, enthusiastic as hell, and an expert in your field, in the first four seconds of a conversation?

In fact, let me take it one step further:

Since a substantial portion of communication takes place over the phone nowadays, how do you ensure that you’re being perceived the right way when your prospects can’t even see you?

Is it through the words you say?

Think about that for a moment. What could you say to try to get all that across in those first four seconds? You’d have to be literally yelling at your prospect, “Hey, Bill, listen to me! I’m sharp as a tack! I’m enthusiastic! I’m an expert in my field! I swear, I swear, I swear . . .” and blah, blah, blah. You’d sound like a freaking idiot! Not to mention that, even if it all were true, no one would believe you anyway.

The simple fact is that the right words just don’t exist. There is no combination of words that are profound enough and stealthy enough to sneak past the logic center of your prospect’s mind and create an emotional reaction that goes straight to their gut; for it’s there, in your prospect’s gut, where first impressions get formed in fractions of a second, and they’ll guide their decisions until you prove them wrong.

So if your words won’t do it, then where do you turn?

The answer is simple: your tone of voice.

Specifically, how you say what you say has a profound impact on how it’s perceived and, for that matter, how you are perceived; and not just during those all-important first four seconds, but throughout the entire conversation as well.

You see, after millions of years of evolution, the human ear has become so adept at recognizing tonal shifts that even the slightest one can have a dramatic impact on the meaning of a word or phrase. For example, when I was a kid and I did something wrong, my mom would say “Jordan!” in a stern, no-nonsense voice, and without her having to say another word, I immediately knew that I was in serious trouble. Conversely, if she said “Jor-dan!” in a singsong tone, then I immediately knew that things were fine.

On the flip side, if a sales encounter takes place in person, then a second communication modality comes into play, working hand-in-hand with tonality to help us get our point across.

We call this second modality body language.

Serving as the dual linchpins of an immensely powerful communication strategy known as unconscious communication, tonality and body language play major roles in how we get our point across—both while we’re talking and as we’re listening.

In essence, your tone of voice, how you move your body, the facial expressions you make, the type of smile you offer, the way you make eye contact, and all those little friendly grunts and groans you make while you’re listening to someone talk—the oohs and ahhs and ahas and yups—are an integral part of human communication and have a massive impact on how you’re perceived.

In terms of percentages, tonality and body language comprise approximately 90 percent of our overall communication, split evenly down the middle, with each modality having approximately a 45 percent impact, depending on which study you buy into (and there are more of them than you can count). The remaining 10 percent of communication is comprised of our words—meaning, the actual words we say as we verbally communicate.

That’s right: only 10 percent.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking right now:

You’re thinking that 10 percent sounds like way too low a number to measure the importance of words, especially in a situation when someone is trying to sell you something. In fact, if you were to think back to a time when you were being sold to, then I’m sure you would recall hanging on the salesperson’s every word and judging each one based on its meaning. It was as if your logical mind was almost being hypervigilant as it went about deciding what level of logical certainty was most appropriate based on the logical case the salesperson had created with his words.

HUMAN COMMUNICATION

Tonality—45% +

Body Language—45% =

90%

Words—10%

So I do understand how difficult it can be to buy into the concept that our words aren’t that important.

But here’s the irony:

You’ve actually misinterpreted the meaning of my words!

You see, despite comprising only 10 percent of our communication, words aren’t just important; they’re actually the single most important element of our communication strategy, but—and this is a very big but—only when we finally open up our mouths to speak. In other words, 90 percent of the time, we’re communicating without actually speaking!

Yet, still, when I walk into any phone room or I observe a sales force in the field, with the exception of maybe one or two salespeople who are blessed with perfect tonality and flawless body language, the rest of them will be completely missing the boat. In consequence, they don’t get perceived as having even close to the level of expertise that would prompt a prospect to hand over control of the sale and let themself be guided.

And, just like that, through a process of unwitting self-sabotage, the sale has been poisoned from the very start, making it only a matter of time until it spirals out of control.

Yet what’s even more ironic than that is the fact that of all the tactics and strategies that comprise the Straight Line System, tonality and body language are some of the easiest to master.

In total, of the twenty-nine tonalities that a human being uses to communicate, only ten of them are core-influencing tonalities—meaning that we use them over and over again as we go about influencing and persuading. Likewise, the Straight Line System has been able to consolidate the infinite number of gestures and postures and facial expressions that comprise our body language into ten core principles.

Now, for those of you who are currently saying to yourselves, “Aha, I knew there had to be a catch! Jordan made everything sound so easy, and now I find out that I have to learn twenty different things? How am I supposed to do that? I’m not a kid anymore; I’m an adult! And an adult can’t just learn ten new tonalities and ten new body language principles! It’s totally preposterous!”

Hopefully, that’s at least a slight exaggeration of what you’re thinking right now, but either way, if you’re feeling even remotely like that, then I have two very important thoughts I’d like to share with you.

First, and I mean this in a kind, avuncular way:

Cut the crap! It’s time for you to get out of your own way and start living the life you deserve. You are capable of becoming proficient at anything you put your mind to. All you need is an easy-to-learn, step-by-step strategy to show you the way, which is exactly what the Straight Line System is.

In fact, one of the true beauties of the Straight Line is that even after just a little bit of training, when you’re still at a very low level of competency, you’ll still get surprisingly good results.

Just how good depends on a number of variables—the industry you’re in, the length of its sales cycle, how much time you dedicate to learning the system, and, of course, your skill level at the start—but most salespeople get at least a 50 percent pop in their sales over the short term—and you’ll get double that if you’re a complete novice who’s in an industry with a very short sales cycle and lots of million-dollar producers.

In Straight Line parlance, we call this the “Good Enough Factor”—meaning that you’ll still get very good results, even when you’re first getting started and you’ve only achieved a reasonable level of proficiency.

And second, regardless of what you were thinking about having to learn all these “new” distinctions, the reality is that you don’t have to actually learn anything. After all, implausible as it might seem, you already know everything you need to know.

In fact, not only do you already know all ten tonalities and all ten body language principles but you’ve also used them countless times throughout your life. The only difference is that, in the past, you have been using them automatically or unconsciously—without even thinking about it.

In other words, there have been countless times in your life when each one of these tonalities came out of you naturally, as a reaction to what you were actually feeling at the moment; and the same thing is true when it comes to body language.

Let me give you an example:

Have you ever had a time in your life when you were feeling so absolutely certain about something that the tonality of certainty just came flying straight out of your mouth? It was like you could literally feel the certainty coming through in every single word, and anyone who was listening would have had absolutely no doubt that you 100 percent believed what you were talking about.

Of course you have!

We all have.

And how about telling a secret? How many times in your life have you lowered your voice to just above a whisper to tell someone a secret?

Again, we’ve all done this a thousand times, because we intuitively know that a whisper intrigues people and draws them in—compelling them to listen more closely.

Now, in a sales setting, when you apply a whisper at precisely the right moment during a presentation, you will be shocked at the impact it has on your prospect, especially if you raise your voice back up right afterwards.

The key here is modulation.

You want to lower your voice, and then raise your voice; you want to speed up, and then slow down; you want to make a declarative statement, and then turn it into a question; you want to group certain words together, and then say others in staccato-like beats.

For instance, let’s go back to the whisper, but we’ll add a little oomph to it. Now, we have what’s called a power whisper, which comes from deep in your gut. (Give your solar plexus a few quick pats with the palm of your right hand. That’s the spot I’m referring to when I talk about your gut.) A whisper from there creates the perception that what you’re saying has extra importance to it, that you really mean it.

It’s like you’re saying to the prospect, “Listen, pal, this particular point is really important, and it’s something I really, really believe in, so you need to pay very close attention to it.”

But of course, you’re not actually saying those words. They’re registering with the prospect unconsciously, in the form of a gut feeling, which moves them on an emotional level, as opposed to a logical one. You see my point?

Another great example of this is how we use enthusiasm to create massive emotional certainty in our prospect—meaning, they get an overwhelming sense that whatever product we’re selling simply must be good.

To be clear, though, what I’m not talking about is that crazy brand of over-the-top enthusiasm, where you’re yelling and screaming and flailing your arms about, as you go on and on about how amazing your product is. Not only is that completely ridiculous, but it’s also the easiest way to get your client running towards the exit.

I’m talking about something called bottled enthusiasm, which sits just below the surface and literally bubbles over as you speak. It’s about enunciating your words with absolute clarity and stressing your consonants so that your words have intensity to them. It’s like you’re talking with your fists clenched, and there’s an active volcano inside you ready to erupt at any second—but of course it doesn’t, because you’re an expert who’s in total control.

That sort of bottled enthusiasm makes a massive impact on someone emotionally, and it’s one of the earmarks of sounding like an expert. Just always remember to never stay in any one tonality for too long, or else the prospect will become bored—or in scientific terms, habituate—and ultimately tune out.

To that end, I am constantly using my tonality and body language to insure against that. You see, tuning out does not happen randomly; it’s based on a conscious equation the prospect is running as to whether or not you’re a person worth listening to. Prospects ask themselves: Can this person help me achieve my goals? Can this person help me get what I want in life? Can this person help me resolve the pain I have?

If the answer to those questions is no, then they tune out; if the answer is yes, they listen. It’s as simple as that.

That’s why it’s so absolutely crucial, right out of the gate, to come off as being sharp as a tack, enthusiastic as hell, and an expert in your field. If you do, then not only will you keep your prospect hanging on your every word, but they’ll also let you take control of the sale and begin the process of moving them down the Straight Line.

Now, in terms of how to start using this in the real world, you’ll find that with just a little bit of practice, you’ll be applying the right tonality and body language unconsciously—meaning, automatically—whenever you find yourself in a situation of influence. But, until then, you need to be extra vigilant about consciously applying the right tonality and body language to every word and every turn of phrase. This will ensure that your prospect stays firmly in your magnetic zone and doesn’t tune out.

Before we move on to the next chapter, I want to go through some key nuances regarding the relationship between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind—specifically, how they work hand in hand with one another to guide all your prospect’s decisions, especially during those crucial opening seconds, when your ability to bypass their conscious mind and speak directly to their unconscious mind will dictate whether you succeed or fail at taking control of the sale, and then again at the end of the sale, when your ability to speak to both minds at once will allow you to push past the action threshold of even the toughest prospects and achieve the highest level of Straight Line competency, which means that you can close anyone who’s closable.

So, that being said, let me start by dispelling one of the greatest myths regarding the relationship between the two minds, which is: that the conscious mind is the more powerful of the two.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Some 200 million times more powerful than its conscious counterpart, your unconscious mind, with its blazing speed and near infinite storage capacity, is what keeps you alive as you move through the world. Working around the clock, it controls your entire autonomic nervous system—regulating your heartbeat, your blood pressure, your respiration, your digestion, your hormone secretions, and every other system in your body that seems to hum along effortlessly without you having to think about it.

Broadly speaking, the primary goal of your unconscious mind is to keep things the same, or, in scientific terms, maintain a state of homeostasis. Your weight, your body temperature, your blood sugar level, the amount of oxygen in your blood, the amount of light hitting your retinas; each of these things and countless others like them are constantly being adjusted to maintain a certain set point that a million years of evolution has deemed to be optimal.

Conversely, your conscious mind is literally starving for processing power as it tries to make sense of things while you move through the world. In consequence, at any given moment, it can only focus on 3 or 4 percent of the surrounding environment, and it deletes the rest—allowing it to focus 100 percent of its relatively meager processing power on a few key items that it deems most important. Collectively, these key items represent conscious awareness, and the way you analyze them is through logic and reason.

For example, at this very moment, 95 percent of your conscious mind is dedicated to your primary focus, which is reading the words I’ve written, and listening to your own inner monologue as it debates what you’ve just read. The remainder is dedicated to your secondary focus, which consists of a handful of things that are happening close enough to you to be picked up by one of your five senses, and are either too extreme or too intermittent for your conscious mind to become desensitized to them and block them out—a blaring TV in the background, a noxious odor, the banging and clanging from a nearby construction site, someone snoring, your own breathing if you have a stuffy nose.

Meanwhile, the 96 or 97 percent of the world that the conscious mind is deleting is being captured in its entirety by the unconscious mind. You see, not only is it responsible for regulating all your bodily functions, it also acts as the central depository for all your memories.

In essence, everything you’ve seen or heard has been neatly filed away there, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed at the time or whether you remember it now or not. Your unconscious mind recorded the experience, compared and contrasted it with similar past experiences, and then used the results to refine and augment your internal “map of the world,” as the phrase goes, which serves as your internal barometer for formulating snap decisions, instant judgments, and first impressions, your internal model of how you perceive your environment, how you believe it should operate, and how you believe you should operate within it, which types of behaviors lie inside your comfort zone and which ones don’t.

Then, to help you navigate the map—and to ensure that your snap decisions, instant judgments, and first impressions remain consistent with the beliefs in your map—your unconscious mind also creates “patterns of behavior,” allowing you to instantly respond to situations that have been previously “mapped out,” in a way that’s fluid and elegant, consistent with your beliefs about yourself and the world, and that requires no conscious thought whatsoever.

In essence, this three-step process of generalization, map-making, and the creation of patterns is what allows you to move through an unfamiliar environment without having to treat everything you see as if it were the first time you’ve seen it.

For example, when you walk up to a strange door, you don’t have to pause and examine each one of its features and wonder if it’s safe to turn the little round knob that’s sticking out on one side. Despite never having seen this particular door before, your unconscious mind has been through this scenario countless times, so it springs into action the instant the door comes into your field of vision—working at near light speed to match this particular door to the spot on your map marked “Doors” and the various strategies for safely entering and exiting them, in non-combat situations and where no new construction is taking place.

Now, obviously I’m taking a bit of poetic license here, but my point is spot-on: rather than having to stop at every new door or every fresh crack in the sidewalk or countless other occurrences, so your conscious mind can logic things out, your unconscious mind takes immediate action and saves your conscious mind the trouble.

In fact, from your conscious mind’s perspective, these snap judgments and instant decisions are based on gut feelings, and it will act in accordance with them until they’re proven wrong.

This happens frequently in sales, and when it does happen, it’s almost always the result of something foolish or off-base that the salesman said. In other words, while your prospect’s first impression of you was a result of your unconscious communication, it can be completely destroyed by a few choice words; and that makes perfect sense, considering that words are the building blocks for airtight logical cases, which then serve as the basis for our conscious decisions.

However, when it comes to airtight emotional cases, we rely far more heavily on unconscious communication, in the form of tonality and body language, than on the words others say.

When the sales encounter is over the phone, we’ll use our ten core tonalities to move our prospect emotionally, while the words they’re attached to will move the prospect logically; and when the encounter is in person, we’ll also use body language to move our prospect emotionally, while our words will continue to move them logically.

So, at the end of the day, whether it’s in person or over the phone, the strategies you employ and the outcomes you desire will always be the same: you’ll use words to influence your prospect’s conscious mind, and tonality and body language to influence their unconscious mind. And the outcome of the former will be an airtight logical case, and the outcome of the latter will be airtight emotional case. All you need to know is precisely what words to say and when to say them, and what unconscious communication to apply and when to apply it. It’s as simple and straightforward as that.

Insofar as what words you’re going to use to accomplish this task, I’m going to be handing them to you on a silver platter in Chapter 11, in the form of a foolproof scriptwriting formula that you can apply to any business or industry with massive success.

However, as foolproof as this formula is, your success is still going to be contingent on your ability to trigger a key emotional state within yourself as you’re about to enter the sales encounter, and then maintain that state to the very end.

We refer to this process as state management, and it’s one of the most important elements in achieving success.

In the following chapter, I’m going to take you for a trip down memory lane—back to the early days of Stratton, to show you the true power of state management when it comes to sales, and then provide you with a paint-by-number strategy for managing your own state that is not only wildly effective but also extremely easy to use.