How Posture Can Make You A Better Salesperson

How Posture Can Make You Powerful

In sales, people have to have to interact with each other all day.  Success in sales comes from being able to feel confident and comfortable in most situations.  At Cydcor, we do our best to present the most effective sales teams around.  One way to easily improve your sales confidence can be as simple as taking two minutes to stand powerfully.

Nonverbal communication has a lot of value in society.  How we interact with each other can lead to very important decisions in life, such as whether someone is hired, sued, or accepted for a date.  One second of political candidate facial expressions can predict election outcomes 70% of the time.

In addition to using body language to judge others, social psychologist Amy Cuddy has reported research that the way we move and carry ourselves also affects the way we judge ourselves.  Further, many body expressions and postures reflect similar positions in the animal kingdom.  When we are afraid we make ourselves small and meek, trying to appear insignificant.  When we want to display power, we make ourselves big and open.

Power stances are known across the animal kingdom.  Also, that powerful people express power chronically as well as in moments of victory.  Even people who were born blind have been showed to display the upward v shape with the arms after winning something, the way racers do when they cross a finish line.

When powerful people and fearful people interact, body language reflects this as well.  People unaware of fear will often shrink in the face of an open power stance without realizing it.  Professor Cuddy realized the difference in power stances in the classroom, and decided to try an experiment to see if grades would improve on students she trained to stand powerfully.
The results were stunning. It turns out that powerful stances for two minutes actually increase hormones that contribute to self-confidence and assertion. So the fake-it-till-you-make-it strategy actually has a physiological affect that helps people be more confident and assertive. See the amazing talking by Professor Cuddy below: