First impressions in sales: why form makes the difference

Imagine: you go to a concert by your favourite artist. The music is phenomenal. But the acoustics are terrible, the lighting is distracting, the artist looks bored and the hall is cold. What do you remember? Not the brilliant lyrics. You remember the total experience. And it fell short.

Form shapes your first impression in sales

That is how it works in customer contact too. A brilliant solution, perfectly argued, can miss the mark completely if the form is off. Form is everything you radiate and convey, consciously and unconsciously. And it begins long before you have said a single word.

What your body language and voice already tell

Take your body language. Raised shoulders are a directly visible sign of tension. Crossed arms throw up a barrier. An open posture, calm eye contact and a genuine smile do the opposite: they radiate approachability and trust. Or take your voice. A monotone story is a lullaby, while variation and above all a well-timed silence have enormous impact. Saying nothing for a moment after an important question forces the other person to think, and raises the value of what you have just said.

Stories stick, facts do not

Then your words. Our brain does not remember lists of facts, it remembers stories. Transform your customer cases into stories with a hero (your customer), a challenge, a journey and a victory. I myself have worked out close to a hundred personal stories that I can use wherever they are relevant. And keep it simple: it is your job as an expert to make the complicated understandable, not the other way around.

You make the best first impression as yourself

But the most important form of all is this: be yourself. Customers see through a role without fail. Stumbling once or searching for a word actually makes you human, as long as your intention is honest. My tip for practising this: film yourself during a role-play. Confronting, but worth its weight in gold.

Form is the sixth element of the Customer Experience Model. Check how you score with the free scan. The full treatment is in Sales, Honest & Relaxed, and practising with live feedback is what we do in the Sales Excellence Training.