Friend or Foe the Importance of Creating Great First Impressions Part 2

Other factors, which will influence the �Gatekeepers� decision whether you are friend or foe, are, your appearance, clothes, smell, enthusiasm and posture. Once you�re past this initial first impression you can get on with developing a relationship with your prospect.

Professor Albert Mehrabian of UCLA broke communication down into three �V�s� as follows:

� Verbal: The message itself; i.e. the words you use.
� Vocal: The sound of your voice, intonation, projection, pitch and speed of your voice.
� Visual: The posture and gestures, facial expression and eye movement that people see.

The Thomas Gordon Institute added another dimension to this research and came up with:

� Words: Verbal
� Voice: Vocal
� Face: Visual
� Body: Visual

Both institutions measured the effectiveness of each component of communication and it�s contribution to believability. Here are the results of their respective research:

UCLA Thomas Gordon
Verbal 7% Words 7%
Vocal 38% Voice 23%
Visual 55% Face 35%
Body 35%
TOTAL: 100% 100%

So, the first step in delivering Great Customer Service to Create Great Sales is:
Approach and greet your suspect/prospect with open, friendly body language coupled with soothing, gentle voice modulation. Our total focus in this step is to get past the �Gatekeeper� so that we develop and build rapport and open the prospect�s message receptors. The words themselves are not that important, a simple �Hi, how are you today,� is a good ice breaker.