A client of mine recently asked me to help him with developing a better presence when speaking with sales prospects. He wanted to make more of an impact in meetings and improve his gravitas.

The first thing I asked him was ‘What would a better presence look like for you’? For which he responded. ‘ People would respect, admire, listen to me. They would think that I’m very knowledgeable. They would want to buy more from me and as a result my sales would excel’

I then asked him ‘How would your clients feel in your presence’? His answer went along the lines of, ‘They would feel like there with someone who knows their stuff. They would feel impressed by me and they would like me’.

I asked him why he felt his presence needed developing. He told me how he didn’t feel respected enough, didn’t think people took him as serious and didn’t think he was credible enough. It’s one of the main reasons he thought his sales suffered

There was nothing wrong in anything that my client said. It’s perfectly normal to want those things when developing a better presence. However, there was one very obvious thing that stood out to me. It was all about HIM. Even when I asked him how he wanted others to feel in his presence he pretty much brought it back to what they would think of him.

As any good sales person knows, people buy from you if you hit their emotions. We tend to buy with emotion and justify with logic. Therefore I encouraged my client to think more about the emotion his clients would feel as opposed to what they thought of him, By doing this he would focus his attention to serving their feelings and take the pressure of himself/ trying to impress them.

After I discussed this point in more detail with him, I asked him the question again. ‘How would people feel in your presence’? This time he spoke about the emotion he would like them to feel. Rather than saying that he wanted them to think that he was knowledgeable he said that he wanted them to feel certainty . Rather than saying they would be impressed by him he said that he would want them to feel inspired. He even said that he would want them to partly feel fear. The fear of what would happen to their business if they missed out on buying his product.

As a result of focusing on the underlying emotion that you want your clients to feel you have better interactions with them, You ask more powerful questions to tap into their emotions, which is far more effective for influencing them. You take the pressure of yourself and stop worrying about what they think of you. You stop coming across as someone just trying to sell them something and come across as someone who cares.

Over the next few weeks my client took this on board. He found that it really did work. He felt more relaxed and confident. He felt that people were respecting, listening to him better. He found by focusing on them (and their emotions) as opposed to himself (and his emotions) he actually developed a far more powerful presence

In the words of Maya Angelou. ‘People may forget what you said, however, they will never forget how you made them feel’