Can You Read Your Cleaning Prospects' Body Language?

Body language is considered an “unspoken language” and most people are surprised to realize that the majority of communication is through body language. As a business owner who is trying to sell cleaning services, it’s important to be able to read the body language of your prospective customer. If you notice that your customer has his arms crossed and isn’t maintaining eye contact, then you know you’ve got a problem.

Here are some basic body language characteristics:

Positive:

• head is up or tilted
• shoulders square
• erect posture
• firm handshake
• smiling
• eye contact
• open arms
• feet flat on floor
• hands in lap or at side

Negative:

• head down
• shoulders dropped
• slouching posture
• weak handshake
• no expression
• no eye contact, shifty eyes, rubs eyes, eye roll
• crossed arms
• hands in pockets or fidgeting

If you’re talking with your prospect and she suddenly folds her arms across her chest and starts shaking his head "no," you’d better make a move fast. You might want to try going back and picking up where the conversation took a turn for the negative and see what you can do to change things back to a positive direction.

What have YOU learned about reading body language? Post your thoughts by clicking on the Comments link below.

Comments

[Chris Collucci]

What a great post...

The commercial cleaning business is sales driven and your ability to read prospects and clients is so important to selling successfully.

Study peoples' faces. The lines between their eyebrows and at the corners of their mouth. What do they do with their eyes. Is it congruent with the look on their face? Does their posture lean forward or shift back in response to what they are seeing or hearing?

And your ability to capitalize on this awareness comes in very handy. When you drop a line like, "I can see by the look on your face I may have caused you to misunderstand me..." you get a get-out-of-jail-free card and a chance to completely rewind and start over.

If you want to get a sense of the power of this ability and some ways to understand on hone the skill, try reading Malcolm Gladwell's book, "Blink," and his coverage of Dr. Paul Ekmans work studying microexpressions.

It can be a million dollar skill for somebody building and managing a good cleaning business.

[Jean Hanson]

Great advice Chris! We also have a book called "Amazing Face Reading" and it is filled with facial expressions and what different things mean - very interesting! Steve had is face read by the author a few years ago at a convention and he nailed it!