Executive Presence is exuded by some people. In this episode I explain it is not a genetic gift. It is a capability you can build. Here are 5 ways to build it so you can be more confident, more assured and win more deals
Executive Presence is exuded by some people. In this episode I explain it is not a genetic gift. It is a capability you can build.
Here are 5 ways to build it so you can be more confident, more assured and win more deals
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This week we are talking about building your executive presence. What do I mean by executive presence? I quite like saying it's the ability to talk a dog off a meat counter.
You imagine a dog who walked into a butchers and all the meats laid out, and there you are, you are the dog's owner, and that dog is salivating ready to go and take that T-bone and run forward.
And you give a word of command. It's a quiet word, and the dog just sits and look at, looks at you.
That's the power of executive presence. It's that ability to have a level of authority and inspire people to do what you want them to do.
And in sales, we we're inspiring people to walk a journey with us to buy our services to take a risk with it.
So they want to know that they trust you. And if you are selling, you know, a high value service, which I know many of you are, then, then it, you're probably talking to a fairly senior person in the prospect organization, the ceo, the owner, or a key person. And so you want to be able to establish a relationship with them.
You know, you can either you can be in two modes with that prospective buyer. You can be a peer or a supplier.
Now a peer is somebody, I think you have the same level of gravitas, the same level of authority, the same position, the same perspectives on business. You're a business person. As opposed to looking at you as a supplier of product where you are well, we gonna talk about price or something like that.
Once I've had a quick conversation and I've worked out what kind of supplier you are, I'm gonna send you to my relevant person in my organization. But you want to work and build a relationship with the decision maker, and you need to stay at the decision making level or even anti-gravity.
You might get into an organization at a lower level, but you percolate to the top because you're seen as that person with executive presence,-
command,
authority,
conviction,
confidence,
a quiet, calm,
and people gravitate towards that. executive presence. It's an aura.
I'm gonna give you some practical examples of how you can build your aura, how you can transfer that confidence and conviction so that you are seen as an authority. So I'm gonna come on to a few things,, literally five things that will enable you to do that. But here's the thing.
Determination as to whether you are a peer or a supplier is made in the space of a few heartbeats. Not minutes of conversation, not hours of debate, not even seconds of saying hello, it happens in the space of a few heartbeats.
There were some fascinating research done by a lady called Natalie Ambady
She filmed college professors teaching their course. Maybe they were teaching physics, maybe they were teaching math, maybe they were teaching English literature. And she would, condense that video into a clip of a few seconds. So completely silent clip. And she played that clip to potential students who were gonna be taking that class and asked the students to rate those teachers ability just based on silent video of two seconds.
She, did a survey at the end of the first semester. So the results were randomized. When she took a collective opinion across all of the people who took those classes she asked the same question.
She asked them to rate the college professor's ability to communicate and teach the subject at the end of a semester. The results were unerringly the same.
We as human beings have the capacity to, within a few heartbeats, a few seconds of non-verbally looking at somebody and imbibing their presence and their aura to determine how effective they are.
This is an incredibly powerful thing. So it's probably worth taking a moment or two to think about how do we work on, on our executive presence?
Let's just think a little bit about communication. Often in, when, you know, other salespeople, I've done this in the past, we're gonna give a presentation, we spend forever thinking about, writing the words, writing the PowerPoint, thinking about the words that we're gonna say to be able to communicate our message.
So here's an interesting statistic. Well, fact actually, how much of communication do you think is conveyed by the words that we actually say?
Give you a moment or two to think about that.
Would you be shocked? To find out that it's only 7%. Only 7% of our communication is the words that we say.
The biggest impact is how we look. That's not just what we're wearing, but our posture, our body posture and how we, how we're looking at the person, how we're engaging them with our, with our eyes. That's 55%.
And the third element is how we sound. That's 38%.
So if I'm, if I'm very nervous and I'm speaking very, very quickly, sounds very different to, I have a very important proposition for you here.
You could use the same words, but expressed with a different tonality, a different cadence, a different inflection really changes information that you are communicating, the confidence in which you are exuding.
If you add the, the how we look comprises 55% and how we sound comprises 38%. Literally 93% of our communication is non-verbal. So if we're wanting to convey presence and an aura of authority, 93% of it is going to be nonverbal. So let's take a moment and think about the current media that we use in sales to communicate with our prospects and our clients.
One, one of the most popular ones is zoom calls or, or teams calls, any kind of video call.
If we think about that call, right, and we think about how we look. It staggers me when I get on Zoom calls with people, the certain kind of things that people wear. When I get onto a Zoom call and I'm talking to a business prospect and I'm wanting to convey a business image, you know, I'll, I'll at least take my t-shirt off, go into the bedroom and put on a collared shirt that, you know, this one color that conveys a little crispness, a little professionalism, and, you know, makes a big difference.
If I'm looking at somebody who's wearing a, you know, a T-shirt versus a college shirt. It, it conveys a different impression.
The second thing is, you know, there's gonna be a backdrop to wherever you are and what they see in terms of a backdrop. Could be your living room, could be your office, could be your bookshelf. People are making impressions based on the books that are on your bookshelf. So, so pay attention to that Zoom call and you know what you are wearing because it will change the way that you are received, particularly by somebody new.
They're gonna be making that instantaneous assessment.
Now, let's think about the telephone.
On the telephone. All they can hear, they can't see. So we've taken out how we look, the 55% of how we look, and all they're hearing is how we sound and the words that we use. But remember, sound is 38%. And the words we're using is 7%.
Let me do a little bit of math there. How we sound conveys five times the amount of information, than the words that we're using. So we are not in a good, calm, positive frame of mind when we approach that call. , then it doesn't matter what words we say, they're gonna be less effective.
And the other point is that those words should be congruent with how we sound. So if I really believe in what I say, I have much more conviction. If I don't believe in my product or my service or I feel as though I'm intruding on their day and I don't have value to offer.
You might say that I've got a powerful service but I'll say something like, well, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you know, we've really good offer for you. We could, you know, install your complete HVAC system. Um, But, um, yeah, yeah. I, I really think we can do, I really think we can do that.
If you've got, Bob the builder cartoons, if your children watch them on the television, there was always Bob the builder.
They would say, Bob, can you fix it? And Bob would come on, he would say, yes, we can. And you believe Bob cuz he's the builder, right? . And he would fix it and then it would pan to this construction crane, and his name was Lofty. He's big and he's tall, but he'd never really had very much confidence.
They would say to Lofty, I'd say, well, lofty, do you think you do? I, I don't, I don't really know Bob. And Bob would say, yes, we can. And so you want to be more like Bob the builder, then lofty the crane, .
That confidence in your voice is very, very important on the telephone, which for salespeople is an important medium
I would advocate you going to one of the earlier episodes, eliminate phone call phobia and make sure that you make those telephone calls.
Now in terms of the how we look it does actually convey on the telephone because if you are sitting more upright and you are, you are poised and your posture is good that posture, infects the way that you sound.
So we'll come back to a little bit of that. don't slouch when you're on a telephone call, but I'll, I'll come back, I'll come back to that.
Here are five ways that you can increase your aura, that you can have more executive presence because it, it is an acquired skill. It's a demonstrated capability.
Don't feel, that you don't have the necessary credentials or conviction. You are an authority in your subject area, so you want to be positive. But here's the thing. The first impression is often conveyed even before you show up in person or on the phone, because people are looking at your social profiles, they're looking at your LinkedIn profile, particularly business to business.
So on your LinkedIn profile, here are three things that you must do to seem professional
.Number one, you've got to get a professional headshot. It's not Facebook. I don't wanna see your wedding picture. I want to see somebody who's smiling. If you're smiling, you're much more approachable. Um, you know, your, your shoulders are relaxed, your posture is good.
Even if it's just the head and shoulders picture you're conveying, you know, a. Assurance, I would suggest that you probably have a collared shirt. If you're really in, you know, high end business sales, you might even want to have a tie or that seems to be less vogue these days.
The second thing, you have a space there on your LinkedIn profile to put, you know, Most people put their title, you and, and people when they're looking at it.
I'm not really interested in what your title is. That doesn't necessarily convey, um, authority. I want to know what you can do for me if I'm looking at your, your, , profile.
I've got a meeting coming up with Mick Holly. Who the hell is he? I look up his LinkedIn profile. What does he look like? What's his, what's his career been?
How can he help me?
And instead of writing. Title you can write, I help general contractors deliver projects on time and within budget. Might be a, might be a headline.
One person that, uh, that I worked with was in the business of selling high end elevators. cabs. That sale is so technical that the expertise that she had to bring about all of the quality issues, all of the legal safety protocols, sh she was clearly seen as a, an authority in that space.
And if you wanted to put together a bid on, An elevator or a series of elevators in a building, you would need to talk to her. And her title says The Elevator lady.
I mean, who else would you go call if you wanted an elevator bid, right? You'd go and see the elevator lady. Very powerful.
And then the last thing.
If you have executive presence, you've normally got a very good network and so people are looking to see, are you well connected? And on LinkedIn it will show the number of contacts that you have up to 500. Once you get to 500, it just says 500 plus. And most people can find 500 contacts.
I had somebody call me . I had somebody call me. Sent me a LinkedIn text and Mick I can help you with, with getting new leads and building your network. I thought, well, that's, that's interesting. Oh, look at the, her, her LinkedIn and she had 47 contacts. I mean, how, how is she gonna help me? I don't have belief that she can help me network when she doesn't have a network.
So you see that communication first impression happens well ahead of time. So that's point number one. Make sure that your social profiles have got good, simple, powerful , audience facing messaging and get professional headshots done right.
Number two, this is, this is a biggie posture. So how you sit, how you walk, changes how you are perceived.
There is a great Ted Talk, with, Amy Cuddy, c u d d y. She's a social psychologist at Harvard. What she did, she created this really fascinating experiment where she would have people go for a job interview, and now job interviews are very, very stressful, and she used that as a vehicle to create an environment where there's a level of stress.
So if you and I are gonna go into a new sales meeting, there's a certain level of anxiety, right? You don't know the person, you don't know how it's gonna go. So it's a little bit of stress. So she simulated that by having these people go for a job interview.
The job interview where a panel of three people who were designed not to give any cues as to how the interview was going. So made it, made it even more stressful.
She broke them into two groups. And she asked them to stand, in what we call a high power pose. So arms stretched, like Superman or Wonder Woman.
You know, upright arms stretched very, very open.
What she found when she tested their Blood levels is that high power pose raise testosterone by 20%. Our testosterone gives us more confidence, right? So your confidence has gone up 20% and it also reduced the cortisol, the stress hormone by 25%.
So you become 20% more confident and 25% less stress. So you're calm. But confident going in.
Conversely, she asked half of the group to take a low profile pose before the interview. So sitting with her arms crossed, their legs crossed. That reduced the testosterone. It reduced their confidence level and raised their cortisols, it raised their stress level.
On a blind study, practically every person that had taken the high power pose got the job offer, cuz the, the, the interviewers didn't know. They just said, this is a very confident person, lot of conviction and very relaxed in the interview. We could, we could hire. . So just something as simple as that.
So think about. this. Let's take the telephone. I said I would come back to it.
If you're gonna make an important telephone call, don't sit slouched in your chair and have that conversation because you won't have the same level of energy and you'll be a little bit more stressed. Whereas if you've stood up and walked around the room and stretched, you'll be in a different position.
I will often advocate, I'll do telephone calls standing up. You sound much different when you do a telephone call standing up versus sitting down. It conveys more confidence. Now, if you're go into a, a new meeting, maybe you are, you're meeting a, a new commercial contractor. You working with the gc, you're going into their office, before you go into their office, you know, you might even be sit in their trailer or you might be sitting in their office and you're sitting in the chair and you.
Bunched up in that, and that's a natural low power pro pose. So when you go to shake hands, you've got that lower level of energy and higher level of stress, and your executive presence will be different.
So what I want you to do when you go into meetings is walk around and stretch and open your arms and build up that, take a few deep breaths and you'll come over with much, much more conviction.
So posture, very, very important. Even when you're on the telephone at home where you think nobody can see you, that posture will convey through to how you sound and the level of conviction. It will change your body chemistry and the message in the communication and the presence will be. That's number two. Posture. Very important. Just take a, take a very positive posture before you have any key meetings or conversations.
Third thing, breathing. Why do babies sound so loud when they cry? They're tiny little things. The reason is, is that they use their diaphragm to be able to project, their breath and their voice.
And as we get older, we typically don't breathe and use our diaphragm, so we sound a little bit more shallow. And if you open it up right, that that voice box that goes all the from your mouth down through to the diaphragm. It's a resonating chamber, and if you stretch it up, your voice deepens a little bit and it sounds more convincing.
Margaret Thatcher prime Minister of the uk was, had a very squeaky voice. Before she became Prime Minister, she had a rather unfortunate nickname. The press in, in the UK here are mean like all, you know, the press, they'll find ways to, and, and one that we used to get milk delivered every day at.
and their little crate of milk, it would be a third of a pint of milk. Every person in the school, all the kids would get a third of pint of milk, all that protein and, and goodness, which, solved a lot of ills, but she said it was too expensive. So she, she canceled the milk program. She was nicknamed was Margaret Thatcher Milk snatcher. .
But she was becoming Prime Minister or running for prime. And so John Gielgud, the great thespian said to her, look, you need to go and get some voice lessons because your voice is too squeaky and you need to be able to lower your voice. There's actually a video on, YouTube. If you go to Margaret Thatcher before and after voice coaching.
They've actually looked at the frequency of her voice, and it's however many Hertz. It is lower after she's had voice coaching.
Now, I'm not suggesting you get voice coaching, but I am suggesting that when you are speaking or when you are gonna give a presentation, or even when you go to a meeting, get that posture erect.
Put your shoulders back, open up that resonating chamber, and you'll have a much more melodious and deep voice, which conveys more presence. It lowers the pitch slightly, so try it when you're on the phone. Just stretch and use that. Take a deep breath and then start speaking.
That's number three. Breathing.
Number four, master the art of the pause.
Did you see that?
That pause had you hanging there for a second?
You think? Oh. Did the recording stop what's going on?
And you, and you and you, you immediately got more attentive and you were waiting for the next moment.
When we're in a sales situation, often, we'll talk a lot. It was funny, I was on a, I was on a, a sales call the other day and, the prospect said, Mick, all my key people speak French.
And you speak English, and when you do the next call with me, I want the call to be done in French. Then I know that you can partner with my people. Fair enough. Right? Fair enough. So I got one of my colleagues, French born citizen now in, in the US American.
And I was on the call. Now, my French is not good enough to follow the conversation, so I'm on this call listening to my colleague talk to this prospect.
It's the sales call, and 90% of the time, my colleague was talking and the client was listening, when ona sales call you want it to be the opposite. You only want to be speaking 25% of the time, and for the prospect to be talking 75% of the time.
It was just really, really stark as to the the difference there.
So when you ask a question, you've always got good questions in sales, just master the pause and then wait.
Don't take up that pause.
Don't try to fill the air because your prospect is thinking. Give them time to take in your question for them to formulate a response
The other great benefit of mastering the pause is when you've asked that question,
you can take a deep breath quietly.
But what does that breathing do? I told you it, it, it gives you more energy, but it opens up your diaphragm, opens up your resonating chamber. And when you do speak, it won't be a squeak, right? It will be a nice resonant, resonant melodious sound that conveys conviction.
Okay. Point number five. Again, we're trying to build our executive presence. Executives are thinking about the future. They've gotta take the organization. They've gotta take their business, their project to the next level. They're thinking about the future. Don't wallow in the problem. Bask in the future success.
So when you are talking to your prospect, you'll say, okay, I've got, I've got the idea. They've told you a little bit about what they want. Don't start solving the problem. Don't start getting into the technical nuances there and then. You are an executive, you. Interested in successful outcomes, not so much as the detail of the, of the problem.
One of the questions I ask is, maybe it's a eight month construction.
You might say what will it look like in nine months time? What will it feel like if this goes well.
Then master the pause and allow them to fill that silence with the glow of success.
They'll talk about, wow, this will be a, you know, this, this project is a, is a landmark project. It's going to put us into this particular region, we'll be known as the, experts in the, , in a construction, in medical facilities, and you might say.
And what does that, what will that mean for you? Well, we're forming a new division. We're expanding to include. Healthcare is an entirely separate Divi division, and hopefully I'm gonna be able to lead that division.
So now you've got all of this great energy and positive thought around this future outcome.
Cuz if you start talking about the problem, it's very stressful, and they associate you with, okay, this is all, you know, detail. I can see that you are the technical person. You are more of the, the doer. as opposed to being, you know, like me, we're thinking about the success, we're thinking about the journey.
Now there is a time then to backtrack. Once you've got that success feeling, cuz then you can create an anchor that anchors you to success. Every time they think about you, they think about that success in nine months time. They don't just think about all of the hurdles and the problems that they've got to go through.
So there you have it, executive presence, that ability to talk a dog off a meat counter. Or to have a prospect work with you and partner with you, often placing their entire career in your hands is all about that.
Executive presence. Executive presence is communicated in the space of a few heartbeats.
It's an aura that you exude and it's influenced by your posture, by your breathing, by the way that you master the pause and that you are talking about success and outcomes.
This is preceded by having a great first impression, which often can be on social. So make sure your profiles are done correctly.
I hope you found some of that useful.
I'm always happy to talk about these subjects and give you, some ideas and coaching.
Until next time.
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