How You’re Standing Could Be Losing You Business

Now if you read this blog regularly you know the importance of unconscious communication and how gestures and body language can affect how you come across but did you know that how you stand can lose you clients?

The way you stand can actually affect your standing with a potential client.

According to Deborah Gruenfeld , a social psychologist at Stanford Business School “ Your status is determined by physical attributes and non-verbal clues. People decide if you are competent in less than 100 milliseconds.”

So it’s really important to stand in the right way when presenting and also when you are meeting a potential client for the first time.

Just for a moment think about it… how do you stand when you’re at a networking event?

When you’re meeting a potential client?

When you’re giving a presentation?

Do you stand the same way?

Differently on each occasion?

Or maybe you not even aware of how you stand…….

But the thing is if you don’t know how you stand then it’s outside of your conscious awareness and you don’t control the unconscious messages you are conveying.

So how do you need to stand to create the maximum impact?

In a way that conveys confidence, trust, reliability, dependability – everything that you would want in someone you will be happy doing business with.

And you do this by adopting a very neutral stance in what I call Powerful Posture^TM

How to adopt Powerful Posture^TM.

1. Stand with your feet hip distance apart if you are female or shoulder width apart if you are male.
2. Make sure that your feet are facing forward and are not turned out. This may feel uncomfortable at first, particularly if you are male and used to standing with your feet turned out but you will quickly get used to it.
3. Rock your weight backwards and forwards on your feet until you come to balance with your weight centred on the balls of your feet.
4. Relax your knees slightly so that they are “soft” and not locked.
5. Make sure that your head is centred on your spine.
6. Lift your shoulders towards your ears and then roll them down.
7. Lift your arms up above your head and let your arms flop down until they are resting by your sides. Then leave them there.
8. Imagine a string from the top of your head being pulled upwards so that you elongate your body and stand tall.

It may take you a little while the first couple of times you do this but when you practice it becomes automatic and you adopt it without even consciously thinking about it.

The result is that you look more powerful and confident and in control and you are automatically deemed to be highly professional and have more authority. You’ll be surprised at the difference it makes in the way that people respond to you.

Until next time,

With best wishes for your success,

Cath