Tag Archive for Body Language

Police As Lie Detectors

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In a 2004 study out of the University of Portsmouth by Samantha Mann, Aldert Vrij and Ray Bull it was found that police officers were sixty-five percent accurate in detecting lies when they watched the proceedings of an interrogation. This success rate is significantly higher than that which could arise by chance alone and also shows that familiarity with the subjects can have a role in increasing accuracy. Most research thus far has used college students, but this shows that police who frequently deal with suspects might have an advantage reading them over reading others. By a similarly notion, this advantage would theoretically be non-existent for police officers in a business meeting or with regard to a salesperson on a car lot, unless they had particular experience with such matters. This study does tell us that familiarity with the subject and the context can help us in detecting lies.

Police manuals give the impression that officers who interview suspects often, are good lie detectors, despite of course the vast research that says otherwise. When the researchers qualified their observations however, they found some surprising findings. Officers who named visual cues such as those mentioned in Inbau’s research, mentioned previously, which forms part of the manual on lie detection for police, such as gaze aversion, unnatural changes in posture, self touching, mouth and eye covering were less likely to be accurate in reading others. In fact, these cues proved counterproductive. Specifically, female participants who claimed to use Inbau’s cues most often where poorer at detecting truths, than the males who did not. In particular, gaze aversion was unhelpful and in fact distracting when analyzing for truth. So despite the moderate success of officers at detecting lies, there still remains severe shortcomings because it was not necessarily due to observations of body language or other anything else that could be described, catalogued, and hence put to use. If an inherent skill amounts to a sixty-five percent success, but one can’t describe that skill in a way that makes it useful to other people, then it simply appears like a hunch. Hunches are not reliable, nor do they meet the scientific principle of reproducibility or have predictive (useful) qualities.

Remaining Uncommitted

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When people tell the truth they will usually show extra enthusiasm and commit to their story. Liars often start off the same way, but quickly trail off.

When people tell the truth they will usually show extra enthusiasm and commit to their story. Liars often start off the same way, but quickly trail off.

Liars have been noted to be uncommitted to lies. That is, because they have nothing vested in the lie, they remain less than exuberant in their convictions. In other words, the subconscious mind of liars doesn’t allow them to carry forward with enthusiasm. Instead of smashing a fist against a table and raising a voice saying “I didn’t do it!”, liars will instead make much duller motions and use less commitment to them. It is not as if they want to lie, it is the limbic mind that won’t allow them to.

Liars will motion without emphasis, or describe events by trailing off or use weak statements. They might limit arm and hand movement by clasping them together or locking them down on an armrest with such force they turn their knuckles white. The hands might be put out of sight in pockets or under a table where they can’t be read. Reduced movement can be seen throughout the body, not just in the hands. The entire body including the head, arms, feet, and torso can seem to lock in place. People that are telling the truth spend a lot of time and energy in efforts to make the facts known which comes across in their body language and gesturing. Truth tellers are happy to spend as much time as necessary to get everything right. They will often add more detail than required and go over it again and again if necessary. Not emphasizing is linked to the freeze response where the mind clams the body shut and reduces movement so as to draw less attention to it. What is important in lie detection is to compare cues from a baseline. That is, if someone suddenly drops emphasis then you know they’ve lost interest in the topic or are lying. In either case, it will have provided useful information to the body language reader.

In writing this passage, I had just reviewed a video (see bottom posted on the web of a baseball game in which a player leaped head-over-feet clear over the catcher as he came to homeplate to score a run. The catcher, stuck in a fear response, failed to tag the runner. Baseball has an interesting tradition where it is customary for the runner to body-check the catcher at homeplate as he tries to tag for an out. While the catcher braced and ducked with his elbow up to make the tag, the runner jumped over the catcher landing on home plate. The catcher stuck with his elbow up in defense could only convince his mind to bring his arm just close enough to miss the tag! Because his mind feared the body check, he wasn’t able to follow through with what he intended. While this is an interesting fear based response what follows is even more interesting since it helps us read liars. The catcher, realizing he failed to get the out, quickly turns to pursue the runner. One must ask why he would track the runner down if he made the tag? Obviously he hadn’t! But more important that this, is that we know that he knows that he didn’t make the tag! This means that any nonverbal language following the lack of tag, should he dispute it, is read as lying language. To state his case, the catcher chats with the umpire by raising his arms showing how he made the tag. What is revealing, however, is that the catcher only slightly raises his arms instead of doing it with emphasis. Instead of showing the gesture over and over again, the catcher just raises his arms once as if to make a casual rainbow motion with his arms. When his coach shows up with arms flaying and talking with enthusiasm, the catcher quietly exits! The catcher knows that he can’t make a case and so doesn’t put any effort into trying. The difference between the coach and the catcher, is that the catcher knows he’s lying, while the coach isn’t sure. Once more, the coach isn’t actually lying anyway, since he wasn’t there to feel the contact or lack thereof of the catchers mitt and the runner, he’s just acting out an inherent bias – he’s playing the role he was hired to do. Lack of commitment is an important cue to watch for when detecting lies so be careful to watch for it.

Liars Freeze Up But Master Poker Players Become Dynamic?

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Lying is so pervasive in life that it is no doubt that poker, a game that celebrates and rewards lying, is so popular. Over the course of a poker game each player will gain access to the same good and bad hands on average, but it is what is done with these hands that bring in more or less money. Even weak hands can win by bluffing, or lying about the strength of the hand, by fooling a competing player into fold. Poker is a game that rewards those that actively lie about strong hands by betting when weak and also holding back or “slow playing” strong hands to milk as much money from opponents. As poker players develop, they work through steps or stages on their way to becoming masters. One of the first skills learned is feigned disinterest which is useful when dealt a great hand. If a player can not convince others that they hold a weaker hand and instead show confident body language and consistently raise, the remaining players will simply fold. This invariably reduces their contribution to your pot and reduces your earnings. It will have been said that you haven’t played the hand to its full potential so even if you have won, you will have still lost.

Once feigned disinterest is mastered, a poker player begins what is called “acting.” That is, they will act weak when they have a strong hand, and act strong when dealt a weak hand. In poker, this becomes very tiresome (but simple) because a player must constantly show signs of strength when they aren’t and show signs of weakness when they are strong. Doing the opposite to what comes naturally consumes mental resources and distracts from other tasks such as reading other people’s body language and calculating the strength of their hands. The next level in a poker player’s development is to do what most poker players conclude their learning with, especially casual home players, and this is to clam up and show no signs at all ever. This is what we call the “poker face” and is the primary topic at hand in this discussion. While not important in general life, it might behoove you to know the final stage to becoming a master poker player which is the ability to move from just the poker face (expressionless, or nearly so!) to all levels perpetually, so you can never quite be figured out with any degree of certainty. Of course, different styles exist between players, where some are constantly chatting, while others are constantly frozen, but the gist of it that they don’t have to be stuck in a frozen pipeline. As with good liars, good poker players possess the skills to act natural and honest, even when they aren’t.

Liars have been shown to freeze up in this “poker face” too. Acting naturally is difficult when under stress, or if we are particularly motivated to get away with a lie. Motivation can be due to receiving a reward, keeping our job, or avoiding severe punishment. The greater is the motivation, the greater the likelihood of freezing up. Someone that hits a monster hand in poker can suddenly stop all movement altogether, but as we see with all lying body language, a liar can also show opposite behaviour and begin to shake or vibrate uncontrollably usually with their feet, but sometimes even their hands. I’ve seen it happen and it tells me it’s time to fold! When playing poker it is usually impossible to see the feet so instead watch the person’s shirt and shoulders, as they will seem to bounce along with their legs. Surprisingly, even while the feet are practically running off, the faces of poker players often remain stoic as if frozen. Bouncing feet are called “happy feet” and is a high confidence ‘tell’, indicating that a person is about to gain something important. It is very reliable and happens as a direct result of having heard or seen something significant that is positive to the person displaying the signal. While high affect happy feet make the entire body bounce, happy feet can be display in a more subdued way by just wiggling the feet. Watching for these cues in poker can be a very important tell and save a pile of money, so be careful to watch for it.

To avoid detection, under the ‘freeze-up’ premise, we expect people to decrease their overall nonverbal behaviour. Scientists have dubbed this the “motivational impairment effect.” Someone who is “acting”, might also appear more deliberate in their performance and this relates back to fluidity of movement. Truth tellers take the trust of others for granted, whereas liars must work for it. This can become evident through their “act” as they struggle to piece their story and body language together and make it appear congruent.

If when questioning, we notice that someone immediately freezes up, becomes rigid or less fluid these can be indicators of lying or at minimum stress. Freezing can happen in terms of facial expressions, foot and leg movements, head movements or even changes in posture. The overall movement of a person can become less fluid and their speech may become less spontaneous or they may stop speaking altogether. It will still be up to you to figure out why a person has become stressed and frozen. Not only this, but you must develop a baseline to compare freezing up versus normal behaviour. Perhaps this person always freezes up when people pry into their lives. Wouldn’t you, especially if you were innocent? Some people naturally use fewer gestures while speaking, and had freezing been a rule rather than a guide would lead us to assume something that is in fact incorrect. Along similar lines, using fewer illustrators in speech has been tied to lying through the research, so is also something to watch for. Just like a novice poker player who holds rigid postures all the time, or a poker face, we’ll never truly know what kind of hand they have through any outward indicators like body language. This is what makes freezing a good default skill to liars.

Nervousness And Guilt In Lying

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"Talking out of the side of the mouth" came about because we feel that liars don't speak to us straight; in plain terms.

“Talking out of the side of the mouth” came about because we feel that liars don’t speak to us straight; in plain terms.

One of the most reported cues of deception includes fear and nervousness. These include higher pitch, faster and louder speech, speech errors or stuttering and indirect speech or talking out of ‘the side of the mouth’ or in worse cases, the liar might even sound unpleasant. We might also see blushing of the face, neck or ears, an increase in blink rate, fidgeting, dilation of the pupils or sweating. In theory, the greater the apprehension of getting caught or the greater the stakes, the more evident these fear cues should be. As an increase in the possibility of punishment or with an increase in the severity of punishment we should also find an increase in nervous body language. The studies tell us that people who lie about something they’ve done wrong, termed a ‘transgression’, the more likely they were to show more deceptive cues presumably because they felt guilt more strongly.

We should also be cognoscente about the motivation of the liar. If they aren’t particularly vested in the lie, they might not show nervousness at all. Someone presenting a ‘white lie’ about who they were with the night previous, or their preference for chocolate versus vanilla ice cream, should be expected to show minimal nervousness. More experienced liars show very little nervousness, because, not only are they practiced at lying, they rarely get caught, so have little to worry about effectively destroying the hypothesis that nervousness specifically increases because of lying. Conversely, poor, but frequent liars, get caught so often that the consequences of their lies fail to bother them, so they also lack nervousness. We should also predict that lies told to close friends or family whom the liar cares for, should make them more susceptible to nervous body language. Here we might in fact see lower pitch, softer and slower speech and a downward gaze as they battle their consciousness. The stick in the spokes of this theory though is that sometimes telling the truth can causes guilt just the same as telling a lie, especially when it is known that the truth might hurt someone. Other times, telling the truth causes even more distress because of the shame of revealing possible shortcomings or mistakes to others. Thus, it’s a pretty safe statement to say that liars don’t always feel guilty about their lies and truth tellers don’t always feel good about their honesty. In fact, many liars justify their lies to prevent distress in other people!

Being unable or unwilling to embrace their lies is what makes lie tellers appear less truthful and convincing. So by this theory we should expect a liar to face more negative emotions when lying which truth tellers don’t face which in turn leads to at least faint feelings of discomfort which then leaks out through the body. However, again we find data to the contrary. It has been noted by researchers that liar can have less vested in their claims primarily because they haven’t actually occurred. This is counter what was presented thus far because instead of appearing more emotional, they may in fact appear less emotional. Lest we forget too that liars can present fearful emotions when they lie due to the chances of getting caught! If you haven’t gotten the point by now, you are starting to. The point is that emotions are intertwined with the fear of getting caught, anguish of lying and telling the truth and a myriad of other factors directly and indirectly related to lying.

As we know, when truth tellers speak, they are backed with an accumulation of knowledge, experience and wisdom from an event, whereas a liar is only acting out of his own imagination. This can provide clues to his deception. Therefore, the liar might offer fewer details, present their story with less emotional investment, provide less evidence to stake their claims, act less compellingly, appear less forthcoming, less pleasant and more tense. It is also important to note the motivation or context of the lie as well, as this will provide us with clues to watch for, be it nervousness, fear of getting caught and the guilt or the shame of either lying or not lying as the case may be.

Deception Causes Arousal, Generally

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While he COULD be lying, it's much more likely that he's actually anxious. We instinctively (and wrongfully) link anxiety with lying, when in fact good liars often feel no anxiety whatsoever when they lie, and honest people feel anxiety when they think they will be disbelieved.

While he COULD be lying, it’s much more likely that he’s actually anxious. We instinctively (and wrongfully) link anxiety with lying, when in fact good liars often feel no anxiety whatsoever when they lie, and honest people feel anxiety when they think they will be disbelieved.

It is a widely held belief that emotional arousal and stress, is strongly tied with lying. It is also at the heart of the polygraph or lie detector. Here, autonomic responses which happen in our bodies without our conscious control such as sweating or ‘skin conductivity’ is measured as well as increases in heart rate and breathing. It is assumed that when lies occur, stress related behaviours increase. Lie detector machines measure a baseline, that is, they take readings when lying is known to occur and compare it to readings when lying is thought to occur. By reading the differences, lying should become obvious.

We can use similar methods to read arousal without the help of the polygraph. Watching for an increase in adaptors, shifting, subtle movements, touching or scratching the face, neck or nose can show us that someone is uncomfortable. What it won’t show us is the reason for the discomfort. By grilling someone for the truth, this is often enough to cause someone to feel stress thereby creating the behaviour instead of uncovering it. Other clues to an increase in stress includes an increase in eye blinking, changes in posture, avoiding eye contact and foot and leg movement. It is important to always put fear of lying and arousal into context. Someone with little fear, little to gain or loose, or in other words, ‘when the stakes are low’ wont show any of these signals. Aside from this lack of tell, it is important to realize that body language cues, especially lying language is not a result directly of lying, but rather an indication of the stress, fear and anxiety that may or may not be present when lying.

Introduction – Chapter 16

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He does not answer questions, or gives evasive answers; he speaks nonsense, rubs the
great toe along the ground; and shivers; his face is discolored; he rubs the roots of his
hair with his fingers.
—Description of a liar, 900 B.C.

Touching the nose has long been use as a 'tell' when detecting lies. However, is lying just that easy to spot?

Touching the nose has long been use as a ‘tell’ when detecting lies. However, is lying just that easy to spot?

I’ve been putting off writing this chapter for some time and not for reasons of laziness. In fact, I have research the topic to death. The problem with lying related body language is that it’s not where it needs to be in order to be useful to the vast majority of people. What research on lie detection, and there is plenty, tells us, is that there is no definitive traits that give up all liars. Most of the cues are either anecdotal or happen some of the time, but not all of the time. Other studies tell us that so called experts, that is, police officers, interrogators, customs inspectors, federal law enforcement, federal polygraphers, robbery investigators, judges, parole officers and psychiatrists fair only at slightly above the fifty percent success rate. In fact, the average is somewhere around thirty-seven to seventy percent. It doesn’t take a mathematician to realize that someone flipping a coin is just as skilled at coming up with the correct answers as any one of the ‘experts’. Other research tells us that higher order interrogators aren’t able to pass on their intuitive abilities to others, telling us that they can’t quantify their observations. If they can’t pass it on to laypersons, than it’s of no practical purpose for me to pass it on either. Other times programs specifically designed and sold to improve detection of deception have failed miserably and have even lead to the detriment, rather than improvement of performance.

Several cues have been attributed to detecting lies. They generally fit into two broad classes. The first is nonverbal visual cues such as facial expressions, eye blinking, eye contact or gaze aversion, head movements, pupil dilation, nodding, smiling, hand movements or gestures, foot and leg movements and postural shifts. The second includes paraverbal cues including pitch, pauses, or speech errors. We will get into these cues in the following pages.

There are other ways that scientists use to detect lies and these involve machines. The most common is the polygraph or lie detector machine. The polygraph relies on changes in heart rate, blood pressure and increases in perspiration or respiration. However, these cues are of practically no use to us because they are difficult, although not impossible to see. For example, an increase in heart rate can be seen if one looks closely at the carotid artery that runs along the neck, and an increase in sweating does become apparent with an increase in scratching of the palms. Further to this, the polygraph has a poor track record and most experts agree that they have severe limitations and their accuracy is known to be inconsistent. As well will see, one facet of lie detection involves the reading of nervousness, but practiced pathological liars are skilled at eliminating nervousness, some even thrive on it thereby reducing the propensity of visible and invisible cues.

Notwithstanding the myriad of hard fast research on lie detection, it is still a widespread belief in the population that nonverbal behaviours betray a liar. Worldwide, cross-cultural comparison has shown a universally held belief that liars are spotted through their bodies. Police training packages will often include nonverbal and paraverbal behaviours as part of the ways in which deception can be detected. A study by Lucy Akehurst of the University of Portsmouth found that when asked which behaviours they thought would be consistent with lying, both police officers and regular lay people agreed. There was no difference between what the experts thought betrayed a liar and what regular people thought. They also agreed that these behavioural changes would occur more frequently in others as they lied, than in themselves. This finding is replicated in other studies as well. For example, police officers and students agreed on which behaviours were consistent with lying and they also thought that they themselves would display these cues less during lying. The research therefore is inconsistent with the nature of lying. It can not happen both ways, and it seems that our attitudes about lying and lie detection are skewed.

Judgments of deception are heavily correlated with long held stereotypes. Person’s that display behaviours associated with lying are often judged as deceptive even though they may be telling the truth. Study after study shows that roughly only fifty percent of the time liars give themselves away, the remaining time, liars are passed off as truth tellers and truth tellers as liars. Pegging liars based on body language alone or some other mystical cue is a dangerous assumption. It can lead to marital break-ups such as if a spouse falsely labels her husband as a cheater, can put innocent people in jail, can lead to the firing of employees on suspicion of theft and so forth. Yet with this huge propensity for error and consequence, we still, by in large, believe that we can read people on this trait. What shouldn’t surprise us are the rewards achievable through lying and cheating. Lying can avoid punishment, save us from hardships, but perhaps more importantly can help protect those around us and their feelings. The question “Does this dress make me look fat?” does not necessitate an honest answer, and in so doing, everyone is much happier!

Teachers, principles, lay persons and even intellectuals have been shown to all think similarly in terms of lie detection, and the body language associated (even if incorrect). Thus to avoid being detected, or mislabeled a liar (which is worse), we should still avoid displaying stereotypical lying body language that will serve to give us away. At this point, you should understand my reasoning for presenting this chapter even if only to slightly help us catch liars. While lying body language may be of some help in catching a liar, it will help avoid making us appear as though we are lying in the eyes of those around us. As the studies on beliefs about deception have indicated, there seems to be worldwide agreement on what constitute cues to deception in others. Therefore, it is these behaviours one should avoid so as not to appear dishonest. I will add too, that lie detection is not impossible, certain individuals do fair better than chance alone when detecting lies. However it is with caution that I present this chapter because as of yet, it is difficult to pin down exactly which cues are used and which cues happen across all people. Some cues mean deception some of the time, while other times they are simply related to emotional arousal and stress which can be due to being portrayed inaccurately as a liar, or in response to the punishment that might be forthcoming. Sometimes it is the worry about being “under the gun” that causes the stress and therefore the behaviour, and not because of any concern about the telling of a lie. While this chapter provides cues to emotionality related to lying, it will be up to the reader of the language to determine the source, be it actual lying or emotions related to being caught.

Summary – Chapter 15

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Seating arrangements is one of the things we infrequently draw to conscious attention but at some level always understand its importance. In this chapter we looked at what seems on the outset to be a complicated matter, but in reality is fairly straight forward and like all body language, once it is know, common sense. We found that seating positions can indicate our reason for meeting, be it ‘affiliation’ – to build group cohesion, ‘achievement’ – to get things done, or ‘power’ – to emphasis control. We found that the meeting organizer typically dictates how meetings will transpire.

We learned that Sommer first began researching seating ecology and that patterns emerged based on the shape of the table and the proximity speakers had to one-another. We found that a casual corner position where speakers meet across the corners of a rectangular or square table preserve closeness between people, but still offers the security of a partial barrier. We found that when seated side-by-side cooperation is fostered, when facing across from one-another but not head-on, independent though is fostered, and when facing directly, competition. We found that leadership studies show us what we intuitively already know, that leaders take up the head position, that those at his or her flank receive trickle down leadership and that when seating is pre-determined, leadership is assigned to the head of the table. We found that square tables includes both competitive and cooperative seating positions, that circular tables had similar affects despite what King Arthur thought, and that strategically we can sway our “object” by taking up competitive and affiliative positions.

Next we looking at how to set up an office and found that desk placement and office artifacts are crucial and that chairs can make people uncomfortable or powerful depending on their height and location. We then looked at seating arrangements in larger auditoriums and saw that the center of lecture halls tended to be overlooked, and also how to use this to our advantage, and finally we concluded the chapter by pointing out that seating location affects participation; those in front participating most, but that it did not related to test scores.

Square Tables

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In a square table seating arrangement, each person is in a competitive (head-to-head) position and a cooperative (kitty-corner) position. This can present an interesting situation.

In a square table seating arrangement, each person is in a competitive (head-to-head) position and a cooperative (kitty-corner) position. This can present an interesting situation.

Square tables present an interesting situation. If we draw on what we know about rectangular tables we know that people who sit face-to-face are in a competitive position and those to our rights and lefts are in cooperative positions. Thus, everyone is equally competing and cooperating with someone at the table completely leveling the playing field. Square tables are great for quick meetings because of this dichotomy.

Bridge is an interesting game played on a square table. In the game there are four players in two fixed partnerships. The partners sit facing each other. It is the tradition to name the players according to their position at the table. They are called North, East, South and West. North and South are partners playing against East and West. In this card game, partners are not allowed to convey information to each other by talking, gestures or facial expression. The intent of the game is to exchange information by the choice of bids or cards played, but how well does this bode with the information we know about seating arrangements? The game has done well to prevent partners sitting next to each other preventing close quarter exchanges that might go unnoticed. However, it does allow partners to face each other head-on exposing their full fronts to each other and also prevents opponents from gaining the same view. While partners aren’t permitted to use any language whatsoever to exchange cues, being students of body language and aware of it’s proficient and pervasiveness might expect something different from the game whether or not it’s ever detected. Naturally, you’ll draw your own conclusions!

Summary – Chapter 14

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In this chapter we examined body language as it relates to business. We learned that we can signal the desire to help in a sales environment without developing friendship by first identifying the type of consumer they are. There are four types of consumer; they are clients who prefer to help themselves, the friendly client who is looking to chat and build rapport before deciding on what to buy, the follower who will want the salesperson to take charge and the dominator who wants to stare clerks down and remains suspicious of their motives. We also learned ways of dealing with each type of client.

Next we covered how people prefer to orient themselves while speaking and found regional differences. For example, Americans will speak at forty-five degree angles to each other, but Arabic cultures will speak so close their faces nearly touch. We then covered handshake techniques and types and found that there are three main handshake orientations; palm down (superiority), palm up (submissive) and palm even (equality) and also the ways to deal with them. We summarized a good handshake as having just the right pressure and duration but that it should vary depending on whom you are shaking hands with. We learned that firm handshakes versus “limp” handshakes can equalize women and men in the workplace and supported this with research that tied firm handshakes to extroversion and emotional expressiveness rather than shyness and neuroticism. We then covered the various handshakes one might encounter and provided visually accurate names for them. They were the death grip, the cold dead wet fish, the limp fish, short grabber/finger grabber, stiff arm and trust forward, wrench forward controller, arm twister, over pumper, double gripper politician, the teacup, the undershaker and the oddball.

We then explained how to thwart dominant handshakes particularly the palm down presentation with the step to the right technique, as well as the various other techniques to send particular messages based on your particular handshake partner and intention. We gave women a sequence by which to follow to impress men in the workplace by keeping the hand perfectly vertical, thrusting forward and aiming to meet web to web, the skin between index and thumb. We then gave women some advice to maintain sexuality without appearing unintelligent, one of which included the heels to neutralize prey, the others included avoiding the figure four sitting position and the full body steeple. We also found that women should appear masculine in their attire, yet retain curves, but not cleavage.

Next we covered readiness and attentiveness body language which includes the sprinting positions or leaning forward to show interest, or by coiling the legs to show eagerness to leave, whereas leaning back shows either comfort of disinterest. We followed this up with tips to become a leader and saw why it is important to show better posture, take up more space, hold a serious gaze with eye contact, use appropriate and tactful touching, avoid too much smiling (especially women), avoid excessive placation and fight the urge to nod with agreement especially if someone expresses a thought you disagree with. For those of us who are happy to follow, we provided tips in dealing with the three different types of bosses, the autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire, then covered ways to impress on a job interview, and concluded with buy signals; eye contact, moving in, touching the chin and greater relaxation.

Reading Buy Signals

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No matter what your occupation, we are all in the business of selling. If we aren’t selling a particular product, we’re selling ourselves! Most good salesmen agree that almost every form of sales includes the selling of oneself and when people buy, they usually buy us and not the merchandise. This is why it’s important to know when we are on the right track during a sales call. Buying signals include indicators that tell us that someone is not only ready to buy an item, but can also mean that they are ready to sign a deal, offer us a job, create a partnership or forge practically any other agreement. Let’s look at some of the ways we know when someone is about to commit to buying so we can tone down or stop our pitch altogether in favour of closing out. Pitching passed the point where a decision is made is always unnecessary, but sometimes even disastrous because we may end up saying something extra to take them out of the buying mood. So here are the various signals we should watch for during a sales pitch.

Eye contact: During the pitch process a buyer will sometimes try to feign disinterest (or might actually be disinterested) but as someone readies to buy, they increase eye contact.

Moving in: Buyers will shrink the distance between them and the seller usually by leaning inward, or if standing, by moving in closer. Translation – they don’t want the deal to slip away.

Touching the chin: Touching the chin is a powerful signal showing thought, and if seen along with accompanying buy-signals, closing should be attempted.

Greater relaxation: Tension is heavy during negotiations, but as demands are met and agreements created, a sudden release of tension from the body indicates that your client is prepared to accept the deal and is okay with its terms.

Any reversal of these signals, midstream or a lack of buy-signals shows that a buyer is not yet ready to purchase. With what we have covered throughout this book, it should be obvious from their body language, the reason they withhold the sale. If possible, addressing concerns as you go through hints in their body language, but if you miss them and get hung up put the ball in their court by asking them what needs addressing. This is only a fail-safe tactic since in most cases, as we have seen people give off plenty of solid clues to negative thought patterns.