From Amanda's very early writing (1990s to early 2000s), shared as it was originally written.
How to increase sales and boost your immune system.
Last week I talked about the importance of touch for the strength of your immune system - and for your wellness. Touch is also a great way of improving your sales performance and creating long lasting customer relationships. Business relationships that is!
Back to basics is often a catchcry at business seminars because we keep getting caught up in the hurdy gurdy, new ‘fan dangled’ complex ideas that are sure to give us the edge in business. Yet, we launch into these new ideas without ever really mastering the basics. The boring old things that is people did really well, they often wouldn’t need the new, complex ideas!
Much research has been done into things that are important for people living in today’s busy lifestyle. Specifically, Hugh McKay’s social research that is presented in his latest book, “Reinventing Australia” where he outlines the reason Australians are in a massive change process which has spun us into the ‘age of anxiety’. I heard him present at a conference a month ago and his point about customer service was an interesting and refreshing change from the usual.
Because Australians are generally in a state of uncertainty about most things in their lives, he suggests one of the most important aspects of customer service and sales is to give the customer a sense of control over their lives and choices as to what they can do. Because they don’t feel much control in any other areas.
Another aspect is to give them a sense of connection to something because one of our endemic problems is loneliness. One in three households in Australia is now a single adult - with or without children. This is a massive cultural shift from the traditional family and social support network. People are craving some form of connection in their lives and that may be one of the reasons for the apparent return to the need for a sense of community and common values. We are moving away from the ‘big city’ syndrome towards smaller ‘tribal’ units. or a sense of that anyway.
Touch is a very powerful way of communicating non verbally - it makes a strong connection between you and your client , customer or staff or team member. One of the reasons given for women being better at sales is that they tend to use touch more which helps make stronger connections with their customers. There are some men who can use touch in the same way.
“Sure”, I hear you cry, “what about sexual harassment?”. Well, there are ways to touch respectfully that bond you to another person in business and ways of making sure you have a legal case against you. Firstly, you must be OK and comfortable about touching another person yourself. If you hate being touched or touching others, get over y our hangup first, otherwise your distaste with touch will be transmitted to the other person loud and clear - and you will have the reverse of the desired impact.
Secondly, you must make sure you are in rapport with the other person, so you have permission to touch them. Thirdly, it’s OK to touch another person on the wrist , near the watch area or on the back of the outside of the shoulder. And the touch should only be fleeting. Longer than a second or two will send different messages. Just a momentary touch is enough to make a subconscious connection with the other person - a message that says I care about you, as opposed to “gee, you’ve got a great body!”.
Fourthly, watch what you are saying to yourself about the other person as you interact with them. Unfortunately, everything you are saying to yourself is at some level being picked up by the other person. (I’ll fill you in on this terrifying information in more detail another time). And, unless your thoughts are pure and genuinely about ‘how can I help , understand or connect with this person’ you may be sending the wrong non verbal message.
Give some thoughts to back to basics and notice how touch is not only healing but also the importance of touch in business as a nonverbal way of saying “I care” and making a connection in a world of chaos.
