When we meet people for the first time, we put them through a number of filters. The easiest one is visual. How do they dress? What hairstyle do they have? Are they tall or short, fat or slim, beautiful, average looking or plain ugly? The next filter is voice. Where are they between having a deep baritone or a lilting soprano voice? How fluently do they speak? Do they have an accent? Accents are interesting, because they indicate where they grew up. We can then fit them into our preconceived notions about what people are like from that place. In some cultures, we can also work out their education level from their accent and then transpose our presumptions about how intelligent they are. If you ever want a demonstration of this, just search for audio of Donald Trump having been over dubbed with a pseudo Oxbridge accent. He often claims he is a stable genius, but he actually sounds much more intelligent when you hear him with that dubbed posh accent. The remaining filter is the content of what they are saying and this comes last, after all of these other biases and prejudices have had a field day.
When we are online we have to pay attention to a lot of factors which determine our first impression. This is tricky, because the quality of the audio on most of these online platforms is very poor. Additionally, we can be trapped in a little box on screen, which negates a lot of our body language and appearance. You may have heard that body language is the biggest proportion of our first impression with others. Fake news! The original study in the 1960s by Professor Albert Mehrabian split the first impression into this breakdown: 55% appearance and body language, 33% tone of voice and 7% your words.
While a lot of self-proclaimed “experts” quote these statistics, they neglect to include Mehrabian’s important caveat. He said these splits only apply when we are not congruent. By this he meant, when the words coming out of our mouth, don’t match up with the expression on our face, our body language and the tone of our voice.
The tricky thing today is that the way we look is impinged by the video online technology and the way we sound by the lousy audio. On top of these issues, we live in the Age of Distraction where everyone is multitasking, when they are online and the Era of Cynicism, where everyone is worried that what you are telling them is fake.
If we wanted to get across that we are reliable and credible, then we need to make sure we look into the camera lens on our computer, set at eyeline height or slightly higher, rather than looking at them on the screen. If we look at the screen in front of us, it looks to the buyer like we are looking down on them. Sit up straight and slightly forward, by about ten to fifteen degrees. This is the online equivalent of leaning into the buyer, when they are speaking, just as we would were we face to face.
Obviously dress the part, because so many visual clues are captured there. Get into your business battle armour for the meeting and look and feel the part of a professional. Have additional lighting set up so that you are very clear on screen to the buyer. We don’t buy things from people lurking around in the dark, so get those lights organised.
Speak a little more slowly than usual, because of the poor audio quality and the audio time lag. This sounds easy to do, until you get excited about your product and start gushing about what a wonder it is and about the copious benefits for the buyer. You may find you really start ramping up your speaking speed. Also wear a headset with a microphone. This is very important for you to be able to hear the buyer as clearly as possible.
Don’t speak in a monotone, where every word is given equal attention and strength in some lunatic verbal democracy. Hit key words harder than the others to highlight these words are very important for the listener to take special note of. If we were in person, we could drop the strength out of these keys words, as another means of bringing contrast to what we are saying. Unfortunately, in the online world, we have a hard enough time being heard even at a strong volume, so forget whispering for effect.
Speak with enthusiasm. In fact, raise your energy about 20% above normal to account for the draining effects of the camera and audio. People who regularly appear on television know this. They compensate for the camera diminishing their presence, by ramping up their energy output. You will find that increasing your gesture frequency helps with raising your energy levels.
We must also project total authority, belief and sincerity. Eliminate all hesitation in your sale’s talk. No ums and ahs are allowed. These indicate you are uncertain about the thing you sell. We don’t buy from people who don’t sound like they are 100% sold on their own product. Instead replace these ums and ahs with pauses. The pause is a genius idea, because it allows the buyer to catch up the audio lag, gives them the opportunity to digest what you just said and clears the decks for the next chapter of what you are explaining.
In the online world, forging excellent first impressions is full of booby traps. These are unforced errors and we need to account for them, avoid them and convince the buyer to purchase from us.
