See what others think?

The important thing is: it’s not about deceiving other people to get the things you want, it’s about being an authentic reflection of ourselves. It’s about no longer being a victim of unfamiliar situations (stress in sales meetings, management guidelines, etc.), but about feeling more powerful and present ourselves – and it’s about maintaining this attitude in the long term, even if it takes time to get there. And if we can establish a deep connection with our counterpart and engage in a harmonious relationship with them, then we will simply get further in our professional and private lives. It’s about an authentic mindset and the associated self-confidence that you can gain through and with your body language. However, if you rely solely on your personality and develop a strategy without paying enough attention to the other person you are supposed to win over and without engaging with them in depth, you are making a big mistake because you are limiting yourself and the potential of your counterpart. You will be branded as a mechanical salesperson and will be perceived as manipulative at best and slimy at worst. As a result, we are also concerned with customer behavior. Why do we behave the way we do? This is a question that has preoccupied philosophers, poets and theologians since time immemorial. The playground of Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky and Freud. Think of Guilt and Atonement and Beyond the Pleasure Principle. The greatest thinkers in history were fascinated by the vagaries of behavior. As I began to study body language and non-verbal communication in more depth, the experience I have gained over the years has helped me realize how our behavior affects our entire environment – not just our customers, but our entire environment. Body language and the associated cause-and-effect principle can provide a lot of material. It is the best way to increase our own impact and to find out whether and how someone falls under our spell. No words can replace the feedback you get from frequent head nods, attentive glances or a sincere smile, with which your listeners agree with what you are saying and put aside their resistance.

See what others think?
Magic eye with abstract sun rays, occult mystery decoration hand drawn vintage mystic tattoo.

If you believe scientists who study body language, 30 to 35 percent of communication takes place in verbal language and 65 to 70 percent in non-verbal language. In other words, almost two thirds of our decisions are made in an area that is very difficult for us to control. 

Beyond Words: Mastering the Hidden Power of Body Language

I understand body language as the part of communication that is not transmitted via the analog and digital parts of speech. This means that everything you communicate beyond the spoken word is your body language. We can roughly divide body language into four categories: what you do with your face, with your voice, with your body and with your breathing. Body language therefore goes beyond the experience of words and speech. It includes gestures, the movement of the various parts of the body, facial expressions, i.e. the movement of the facial muscles, posture and distance. Well over 10,000 facial expressions are naturally innate to humans. Your facial expression always conveys the pure truth to other people. They just need to understand this type of language. The analog parts of the voice also provide information about whether you are happy, sad or angry, and body language plays a central role in this. Posture is a clear indicator of happiness or sadness. Human facial expressions reveal strong doubts or genuine interest at a glance. We also use gestures to show what we are thinking – whether consciously or unconsciously.

Selling with Body Language Face Expression

The Truth Behind Lies: Is Absolute Honesty a Gift or a Curse?

Now imagine that you could learn body language in such a way that the thought can be verified in reality. Not just on an intuitive level. Yes, that is something of a philosopher’s dream. Just think what kind of society we would live in if everyone could do that. We could recognize when we are being fooled and when we are being told lies. It would suddenly be relevant what hateful thoughts people have and they would no longer need to lie because we would know about their thoughts. But would the world really be a better place if everything could be verified? Because then we would all communicate unconditionally honestly. Personally, I have strong doubts about that. As much as I liked this idea at first, I quickly rejected it. Absolute honesty is not always diplomatic and certainly not the most pleasant form of communication. When dealing with people, we must not forget that we are not just dealing with rational beings, but with creatures full of emotions, pride, vanity and prejudices. Should you bluntly tell your colleagues or customers what you think of them? Do you know someone who immediately grimaces when they don’t like what they hear, or who can’t suppress a yawn when they’re bored? Someone who always makes their opinion known, who always goes their own way with their world view and their manner, who always behaves in the same way, whether they are talking to their boss or their child. Such a person would undoubtedly be ridiculed, ostracized and despised in our society. Thank God we rarely really know what the other person actually wants. Or thinks. And that’s actually a good thing. That’s what makes us human. How infinitely colorless and dry our lives would be if we could instinctively assess our counterparts correctly at all times. Nevertheless, our happiness, and even our survival, also depends on our ability to understand what our fellow human beings are up to and what they are thinking. As we cannot look into their heads, we are forced to interpret their behavior and facial expressions correctly. This is why we learn early on to resort to deception in the social world – we tell others what they want to hear, hide our real thoughts, bend the truth and mislead them in order to make a better impression. Often we are not even aware of what we are doing

Selling with Body Language human Behavior

Decode Body Language: Unlock the Secrets Behind Every Facade

We don’t need to play this irrational game. Instead, we could get used to playing an infinitely different game: the game of reading our counterparts. Don’t worry, thoughts are completely personal and unrecognizable. No external signal reveals to other people what we are actually thinking, only that we are thinking. And that’s where we need to pick up the topic at the latest, because it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we could meet our customers where they are, because this lack of knowledge doesn’t apply to our emotions. Individuals may differ in the way they express themselves, but the fact is that our feelings are never inaudible or invisible to others. 

If these feelings are related to others, great. But that is less and less the case. Especially today, in times of omnipresent mindfulness and growing (self-)sensitivity, people are increasingly calculating because they have become more self-absorbed. We are constantly preoccupied with ourselves and find it harder to put our own needs aside and put ourselves in the shoes of others in order to imagine what they want from us. We are quick to broadcast our own needs to the world in the form of messages. And the only question we ask others is: what’s in it for me? This lack of empathy for others leads directly to a lack of reduced attractiveness that we exert on others and thus to growing alienation. This means that the interest of others in me/us will be very low. Of course, we feel this reaction and because we can’t deal with it, we start to pretend. We are all actors. We learn early on to get what we want from our parents by training ourselves to look a certain way.

We learn how to hide our true thoughts and feelings from our parents or siblings in order to protect ourselves in vulnerable moments. But we also learn what we need to do to look good. We become professionals at flattering anyone we need to win over – school friends, best friends, teachers or colleagues, for example. We learn to integrate into a group by dressing the same and speaking the same. As we get older and plan our careers, we learn to put on the right front to get the job and how to do it to be popular with our colleagues. Whether we are a manager, professor or craftsman – we always have to behave accordingly and play the required role and develop acting skills. These are not conscious behaviors, but it helps immensely to be aware of them. Observe yourself as you communicate with various family members, your colleagues and your partner. You will find that your choice of words, voice, mannerisms and overall body language subtly change to adapt to each person and situation. You will develop a situational facet of your personality. If you want to impress someone you don’t know, you put on a completely different face to someone you know well. You do this without thinking about it and out of sheer habit. But this also means that the people around you are generally a mystery. You can never be sure of their intentions. Often their outward appearance is a sham, their manipulative behavior does not match their lofty words or promises. All of this can be confusing. If you see the person you are talking to as they really are and not as you would like them to be, you can better understand and assess their motives. You are able to get a glimpse into the other person’s thoughts and feelings – regardless of what they are telling you. This means that you can look behind the façade that others show to the outside world and recognize what they are really thinking.

This is not about the other person’s rational thoughts, but about their emotional thoughts, namely those that are communicated through their body language. Knowing and learning to decode these is the most important step in answering the question of who my counterpart really is. My book Selling with body language is designed to help you do just that, to equip you with the tools to look behind the façade. And you do this by learning to create trust, to implement a non-verbal level so that the people around you gradually lose the ability to resist without knowing how or why this happens. One more thing: this book has been written by practitioners for practitioners. The ideas and strategies have all been used and tested in actual sales talks and have proven their worth in direct contact with customers. It aims to familiarize you with all the relevant aspects of body language in sales and at the same time – wherever necessary – shed light on the psychological and physiological background. If you get involved, it will radically change the way you look at other people and the way you deal with them. And it will also change the way you look at yourself. You will learn how to leave provocative remarks, rejection or attacks completely emotionally cold and practice stoic composure. In business, we often encounter people who are destructive, insulting or simply dismissive. The more precisely you decode the body language of your counterpart, the easier it will be for you to stop reacting emotionally and instead try to find out what the other person’s behavior is actually due to. You will thus build up a distance to your own emotions and no longer take the rejection personally. This book will make you an excellent interpreter of the signals that other people are constantly sending out, and your ability to decode other people’s body language will also help you in your private life because you will be able to meet friends, acquaintances and loved ones with greater ease and elegance. 

Standing with Body Language, The Way You lookat Other people will Change

Master the Silent Art of Persuasion

This book is based on my experience of more than 25 years in sales in 10 countries. I have had the great fortune to meet some of the most successful salespeople and have had the opportunity to analyze their strengths and decipher their success. They all had the ability and skills to read their customers and know exactly how to use this knowledge to maximize their chances of success. For years, I myself was looking for a practical, useful manual on body language that I could use specifically for selling. And since no such book existed, I decided to write it myself. With “Selling with Body Language”, this handbook is now available. It offers a completely new approach to developing your sales technique and your sales behavior. This book is not a catalog of interpretations, but rather a universally valid collection of the most important laws and basic patterns of body language – not only, but above all, to support you in sales.

The handbook consists of three parts. The first part describes the causes, basics and challenges of body language – and explains basic strategies for using body language in your job. Understanding these strategies will also raise your awareness of your potential, which is the cornerstone of your success. In the second part, I have compiled 120 relevant case studies from the world of sales. It deals with the various non-verbal signals and their practical effects. It deals with both positive and negative signals that we later use to learn to “navigate”. Almost every second facial expression is misperceived or not even noticed. This means that there are lots of signals that you may not recognize and that may lead to a customer not buying. I have literally sorted these non-verbal signals from head to toe and divided them into three areas: Facial expressions, hands and feet. They therefore also represent 120 strategic manoeuvres that you can use to learn how to trigger customers, break through their resistance, give your own actions momentum and impact and ultimately close the deal. Using the 120 case studies, I will describe exactly which gestures salespeople are confronted with by their customers. You will learn what these gestures mean and can derive a lot from them. Each case is discussed in detail and, of course, I also explain the appropriate response. In other words: while you learn to understand the meaning of the individual gestures of your counterpart, you will also be shown how to respond with your own body language.

Selling with Body. Language Master the Silent Art of Persuasion

The Hidden Language of Sales: Body Language Decoded

A third part serves as a kind of bridge between the two parts, dealing with sales processes in general and the associated individual integration of body language. It gives you the opportunity to use your own body language in a targeted manner for selling. You will learn to decode your own strengths. After all, it’s all about speaking to people in a relaxed and authentic manner and understanding them in such a way that you can close great deals.

Selling with Body Language the Book.jpeg

What are the benefits of this book for you? What results can you expect? Quite simply! It’s all about one big word: knowledge of human nature. The more detailed your observations, the better your perception. The more detailed your perception, the better your knowledge of human nature. The better your knowledge of human nature, the better your likeability ratings with customers. The better your likeability ratings with the customer, the better your relationship. A better relationship means professional success. We make judgments based on subjective criteria such as sympathy and antipathy much more often than on objective moral maxims. Body language is also relevant when managing employees. Business life is always about people. And if you are a good judge of character, you will know what motivates them, how to create incentives and what inspires them. Key performance indicators may be the important targets, but achieving these targets first and foremost requires people.

From Insight to Impact: Transforming Sales Through Body Language

I’ve been to a lot of conferences, given a lot of talks and listened to what other speakers have to say. And there is always one standard saying: “The focus must be on people.” Every CEO, HR developer, management consultant and politician repeats it over and over again. And then I hear speeches that make me wonder where people actually stand. If people were really important, why don’t many salespeople make an effort to adopt their perspective? A salesperson who pays attention to body language does exactly that: he changes his perspective and thus leaves the framework of the conventional approach. It creates trust and thus a bond that takes the whole person seriously, allowing you to cultivate relationships that offer mutual added value. Have the courage to embrace the necessary change of perspective! So let’s talk about a great opportunity. The more we master the interaction with people mentioned at the beginning, the more confidently we will generate more sales. That is a logical consequence. One salesman told me that his monthly income increased from 4,400 to 8,800 euros in just seven months, and a real estate agency reported that they were able to increase their sales by more than 70 percent within twelve months after they implemented selling with body language.

We will not go into the classic determination of requirements or wall treatment. Enough has been written about this in numerous other books and I assume that these are not your actual problems. 

A number of guidebooks have also been written on the topics of “body language” and “selling”. Unfortunately, there are hardly any that combine the two constructively, which is astonishing, as these topics belong together and without a sound knowledge of body language, real sales success is a matter of luck. Body language is a kind of “secret language” among the successful. All real winners know the signals of the body. All of them. You can’t do without body language. Everything is possible with body language! Mastering it means nothing more than discarding a naive perspective and gaining a more realistic view. When classically trained salespeople pay attention to their customers’ behaviour, they tend to categorize their actions and jump to conclusions, which is why they are satisfied with the assessment that matches their own ideas. Or they accept the customers’ verbal explanations without questioning them. Something else happens when you take a look at body language: You realize how easy it is to misjudge people and how deceptive first impressions can be. You will take a step back, question your original judgment and instead practice analyzing what you really see. You will also actively process the information you gather in an empathic way and then gain further insights. You will constantly switch back and forth between feeling and reason, between empathy and analysis, and constantly update what you observe, thereby improving your ability to see the world through the eyes of the customer. Through this practice, you will register a sense of interpersonal connection. That is, we will overcome our tendency to either idealize or demonize people and begin to see them as they really are.

The modern salesperson and his adaptation strategy 

Especially today, people have the understandable desire to be truly understood. The key words of our time: authenticity and empathy! People want us to speak to them in a way that suits them. They want us to choose the form of conversation that they understand – i.e. the conversation that suits the customer, that they find good and pleasant. Accusing someone of not understanding you is extremely unfair. Because firstly, we don’t understand ourselves and secondly, we can’t communicate to others – even if we do understand ourselves. So anyone who is angry and bitter about the fact that other people cannot grasp our whole being is unjust. Most people were brought up according to Confucius’ principle: “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” If we apply this to our communication, it would mean that we should sell to others the way we would prefer to be treated. However, this would have the disadvantage that we would only be successful in selling to people who think, feel and make decisions in the same way as we do. That is why we need to change the principle we have been taught into: “Treat others as they would like to be treated.” Current neuroscientific research by scientists from many different disciplines such as physiology, psychology, medicine and biology has confirmed that in any system based on cooperation, regardless of whether it is a corporation or a soccer team, it is always true that adapted communication is the decisive factor for success. If you choose the form of conversation in which the other person finds themselves, you have the key to understanding. If you don’t do it, the influence you have on the other person’s behavior is random and short-term at best and 80 percent of all conversations are lost. Even technical professions such as engineering owe only 15 percent of their financial success to technical ability, with the remaining 85 percent attributable to people skills. We can attribute many aspects of our nature to the specific ways in which we have evolved as social beings to survive: cooperating with others, coordinating at a high level and our actions in the group, creating new forms of communication and strategies to maintain group discipline. These early experiences live on in us and continue to shape our behavior, even in our modern, high-tech world.

New Release​

to dealing confidently and self-assuredly with the challenges of your dialogue partners in any professional or personal situation.

Never overreact emotionally again