elp.
I’m a human and I’m trapped in my body.
We humans are all trapped in our bodies.
As much as we want to believe we are logical, we are entirely emotional creatures. Our bodies and how they feel dictate our attitudes, whether we are open or resistant to new ideas and change, and how we interpret information.
Daniel Kahneman (‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’) says that our brains are split by two systems.
System 1: fast, intuitive, and emotional
System 2: analytical, logical, and deliberately slower
I would argue that we are largely System 1 creatures. Almost every decision we make is immediate and emotional, followed by a “logical” justification.
(That 30€ case I bought for my iPhone?)
In the 1960s, UCLA Psychology Professor, Albert Mehrabian conducted groundbreaking research on body language and non-verbal communication, concluding that communication is “55% nonverbal, 38% vocal, and 7% words only.”
Let that sink in.
The implications are immense. It means that 93% of our messaging is unrelated to our pitch, our proposition, whether what we are saying holds any value or benefit for the receiver, or whether the message is even true.
This isn’t to say that messaging isn’t important. Of course it is. But the point here is that the message is mainly in its delivery.
Birds of a feather
The System 1 thought pattern and non-verbal communication complement each other.
We decide to trust someone within the first 5 to 10 seconds. The substance of their message comes in second place and is largely influenced by our perception of them. If someone radiates confidence, we tend to like them and trust them. As Chris Voss says in his groundbreaking book, ‘Never Split the Difference’, “On a mostly unconscious level, we can understand the minds of others not through any kind of thinking but through quite literally grasping what the other is feeling.”
Let’s apply this to the cold call.
Your interlocutor can’t see you. Your body language sinks into your tonality – the speed of your voice, your pauses, your verbal expressions, and whether you inflect upwards or downwards. This is how you are perceived.
We’ve all heard the stuttering and insecurity that comes from the other end of the line from a nervous cold caller. At this stage we aren’t even considering what is on offer. We are preparing to banish our caller from Elevator Pitch Island, and it’s all based on their tonality and vocal inflections.
“On a mostly unconscious level, we can understand the minds of others not through any kind of thinking but through quite literally grasping what the other is feeling.”
Chris Voss ‘Never Split the Difference’
Bring this knowledge to bear on your next call. Will your pauses, your down inflections, and your tonality alter the outcomes?
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