July 17, 2023 – Repertoire Magazine recently sat down with Brown to discuss how body language and fraud detection can be used in a sales environment to better understand the needs and wants of the customer.
Body language is a person’s physiology. People like Brown who can read body language are looking for certain movements to indicate meaning beyond what they might be saying. While a person’s body language can tell you a lot about how they feel in the moment, it doesn’t always mean the same thing for everyone. More than anything, body language can tell how and when to dive deeper.
“The important thing is to understand someone’s baseline and how they normally behave. Look for certain shifts around important topics, because if you make a broad decision about someone based on one movement, you may be wrong a lot of the time,” Brown said.
Sales reps can also use body language to gauge the interest of potential prospects during a sales meeting. “You need to see if the body language matches with the words,” Brown said. “It doesn’t matter if we’re looking for fraud or not. I work with a lot of sales teams because buyers are liars. They’ll tell you anything.” These skills can assess if the person is actually interested in what you have to offer and if they are going to set up a follow-up call for more information.
Fortunately, a good sales rep is already equipped with the tools to be able to read people and situations. Sales reps work based on the needs and challenges faced by their customers, so anyone in sales should have a rudimentary understanding of how to navigate these situations. All it takes is a good eye for what people need and how you can address those needs.
The most important thing is to pay attention to any of the obvious signs and look for a way to ask questions based on how they are reacting to what you have to offer. “The goal is to use the information that is available to you, instead of just their words. Words can lie, but the body can’t.”
Read more in the latest issue of Repertoire Magazine.