Body Language & Rapport
Can you read a room? Do you know what impression you are making before you open your mouth? This session is about the conversation that happens before the conversation.
Whatever you sell, you are ultimately selling an idea, and the person opposite decides how they feel about you long before they decide anything about the product. Reading body language is a smaller and more learnable skill than most people assume. Building rapport is something you can do deliberately, rather than hoping for chemistry.
What the session covers
- Reading the room. What posture, hesitation and attention are telling you while somebody is still being polite.
- First impressions, on purpose. The signals you are already sending, and which of them you can choose.
- Instant rapport with a stranger. Practical technique, including the ones that are as simple as changing the rate at which you speak.
- Resistance. How to hear an objection as information rather than a wall, and how to shift an opinion that has already formed.
- Empathy in the conversation. Recognising and responding to what the other person is feeling, not only to what they are saying.
- Names. Why we lose them within seconds of hearing them, and a method that makes them stick.
- Leading a conversation. Guiding an interaction with confidence and care, so the person in front of you gets what they came for.
Who it is for
It is built for sales teams, and it is not only for sales teams. The same material changes how a complaints desk handles an angry customer, how a leader is received by the people who report to them, and how anyone client-facing is remembered after a first meeting.
The content draws on a working life spent reading people, alongside comparable work in emergency services and a long study of influence and human behaviour. It is delivered with demonstrations and exercises the room takes part in, not as a lecture.
Built for the room it is delivered to
The work that decides whether a session lands happens before anyone walks on stage. Each one is shaped around the people who will be sitting in front of it: the points tuned to their day to day, the message aligned with what they actually value. A keynote that could be delivered to any company is a keynote that lands with none of them.
In practice that shaping is done around your objectives, your industry and the outcome you need, before the day. At Petbarn's national conference on the Gold Coast the brief was clear about what it was not: it was not a sales session. The focus was connection, between employees, between staff and customers, and around the animals those customers walk in with.
How it runs on the day
The session is built from exercises, visual demonstrations and explanations. Very little of it stays theoretical. The skills are demonstrated live, on the audience themselves, and then unpacked so the room can see exactly how it was done, which is why the material sticks.
I facilitate a lot of conferences and I had the pleasure of having Phoenix turn up to coach our sales team. He was exactly the right person for this group! It was both fun and entertaining, but really hit home with how to better build rapport with people and get the sale. I absolutely recommend him for your next sales conference or leadership group.
- Format
- Keynote, or capped workshop
- Length
- Up to 1 hour as a keynote
- Best for
- Sales, leadership, client-facing teams
- Style
- Demonstrations and exercises
Related reading: inside this session at Petbarn's national conference.
Common questions
How long is the session?
Up to an hour as a keynote. The same material also runs as a capped workshop for a smaller group, where more of the time goes on hands-on practice so everybody actually gets to try it.
How big can the audience be?
As a keynote it works from around 25 people up to a full conference hall, and it has been delivered to a room of hundreds at Petbarn's national conference on the Gold Coast. The workshop format is deliberately capped so that everyone can take part.
How interactive is it?
It is delivered with demonstrations and exercises the room takes part in, rather than as a lecture. The skills are demonstrated live on the audience themselves and then unpacked, which is exactly why the material sticks.
Is the content tailored to our organisation?
Yes, and it usually is. The session is shaped around your objectives, your industry and the outcome you need, with the points tuned to the day to day work of the people in the room. A keynote that could be delivered to any company is a keynote that lands with none of them.
Is this only useful for a sales team?
No. It is built for sales teams, and it is not only for sales teams. The same material changes how a complaints desk handles an angry customer, how a leader is received by the people who report to them, and how anyone client-facing is remembered after a first meeting. At Petbarn's national conference the brief was not a sales session at all: the focus was connection between employees, and between staff and customers.
How do we choose between the keynote and the workshop?
The keynote suits a conference or a kick-off, where the whole room needs to see it. The workshop suits a smaller group that has to leave able to do it, which is why those numbers are capped.
Other sessions
- Mind Hacker. Security awareness keynote, 45 minutes to 1 hour.
- MindSet. Keynote, 1 hour, from 25 people with no upper limit.
- Memory Techniques. Workshop, 1 hour.
Have a sales kick-off or a leadership group coming up?
Tell Phoenix about the team, the outcome you need and the date. You will get a straight recommendation on whether the keynote or the workshop format fits, usually within one business day.