It's not the product. It's not the timing. It's your body language and tonality. Both have more to do with sales success than other factors because at the core, sales is result-driven communication.
I've been leading sales organizations for more than a decade. However, when I speak with entrepreneurs as an Alchemist Accelerator mentor, I’m reminded that although not everyone is employed in sales, at different times, we all sell—to potential investors, co-founders, employees, partners, and perhaps, even family members.
Your State Matters
Take a minute. Consider how you feel right now. You should care about your state of mind because it’s influencing the work that you're doing and the effectiveness of your communication (i.e., your body language and your tonality). You need to ensure your mood is making a positive impact, helping you achieve what technical professionals call flow or being in the zone. This is your peak state, and it affects the results that you want. It heightens your performance. The opposite is also true. If you are in a bad state, your performance dips, you communicate poorly, and you make mistakes.
A few months ago, I went to a demo-day event where a number of founders were pitching their products to a large audience. After noticing a disturbing trend in a few sessions, I did a little experiment. What I observed was this: at the start of every presentation, attendees sat up, ready to listen. But by the two-minute mark, most attendees lost interest and were looking at their laptops or phone screens. The presenters were dull. Some lacked energy, others lacked enthusiasm, as they pitched their products.
One presenter was different. He started with high energy. He sounded passionate and engaging. Attendees looked up from their screens and listened. He asked questions, and they paid attention. Yet within a few minutes, his energy dipped and he lost them. The attendees went back to their devices because he couldn't maintain his state.
I spoke next, determined to engage the audience’s attention through the entire session. My product wasn't any better than the others being presented, so I knew my communication needed to be different. I took a moment to get myself into a peak state. Then I made my pitch with a powerful and palpable energy. I was loud and enthusiastic. I moved around the stage, and asked a ton of questions. Above all, I maintained intensity during my entire talk, and I paid careful attention to the results.
Throughout my session, the vast majority of the audience was attentive and engaged. I had five times the number of questions about my product than any presentation before me, and at the end, a number of attendees came by to meet me in person. My pitch was successful, and it had very little to do with the product I was introducing.
The secret to a successful sales pitch is more than the initial spark—it's sustained energy and enthusiasm. If you can achieve peak state, getting into the zone, you communicate better. Your body language and tonality automatically attracts people and significantly enhances your influence over them. If you can consistently attain this state, you can consistently elevate your performance above the norm.
Two Simple Ways to Master Your State
There are two simple steps you can take to very quickly make a meaningful difference in the result of any communication:
1. Hack your brain
2. Hack your body
What is hacking your brain? In effect, it's an exercise to change your state. You hack your brain before a big pitch by taking five minutes and focusing your thoughts on these things: (Hint: It helps to write them down.)
- Think of one thing you are truly excited about today. If it's a thing, imagine receiving it right now or if it's an event, imagine it taking place right now. Focus on how you feel.
- Think of one thing you are truly thankful for in your life? Take a moment to appreciate that feeling.
- Think of one person you are thankful to have in your life? Take a moment to consider why.
When you hack your brain, you put it in a different mood. You replace negative emotions with positive ones—excitement, thankfulness, and appreciation—and those excrete the chemicals that get you closer to your powerful peak state.
Hacking your brain isn’t enough. You need to hack your body in a similar way because emotions and your body are connected in a profound way. If you change the state of your body, you change the state of your mind and vice versa. As Tony Robbins often says, “motion creates emotion!” Doing any form of exercise (e.g., fast-paced walking, running, dancing, or even some jumping jacks) can influence your mental state and put you in the zone. With the right mental state, you'll start to notice that your communication and body language improves. You do better things and you do things better. Sales is one of those things.
After hacking your brain and your body, you feel better. Your body language automatically improves, and your tonality matches your positive, confident, and empowered emotions. At this moment, you have the best chance to influence others through your communication.
Achieve Results
Your body language and tonality are what people use to interpret what you are saying. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it that matters. Frame of mind and tonality are the reasons two sales people using the exact same script, answering the same questions, can have very different results.
The next time you're ready to make a cold call, close a deal, pitch to investors, or present in front of an audience, pay attention to your state. If you’re not in a peak state, take a minute to hack your brain, then hack your body. You'll be glad you did.
About Kevin Ramani
Kevin is the Head of Sales at Cobalt Robotics, and was one of the founding team members of Close.io, helping to build the company from the ground up. Kevin is also a startup advisor and a mentor to several Silicon Valley startups. Connect with him online.
About the Alchemist Accelerator
Alchemist is a venture-backed initiative focused on accelerating the development of seed-stage ventures that monetize from enterprises (not consumers). The accelerator’s primary screening criteria is on teams, with primacy placed on having distinctive technical co-founders. We give companies around $36K, and run them through a structured 6-month program heavily focused on sales, customer development, and fundraising. Our backers include many of the top corporate and VC funds in the Valley—including Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Cisco, and Salesforce, among others. CB Insights has rated Alchemist the top program based on median funding rates of its grads (YC was #2), and Alchemist is perennially in the top of various Accelerator rankings. The accelerator seeds around 75 enterprise-monetizing ventures / year. Learn more about applying today.