The Body Does Not Lie

Just recently, I attended a seminar which had a number of prominent speakers conveying their ideas on marketing and using the Internet as a source of income. During one of the presentations, one particular speaker was talking about the latest marketing concepts to the audience of around 500 people. An area in front of the stage was reserved with empty chairs and they were for people who were interested in what was being offered even before the offer was made.

During the 2-hour presentation, a handful of people were brave and took a seat in the reserved area. As the speaker was getting towards the end of the presentation, the main offer was pitched, and the speaker used the analogy of airline companies offering cheap seats. The more people sat in the chairs in the reserved section, the cheaper the offer would be. To my surprise and I guess everybody else's surprise, when the audience was asked if anybody wanted to take up the offer, nobody moved to the front. The only people in those chairs were the 10 or so people who had moved there during the presentation. I think the non-responsiveness of the audience surprised the speaker as well and the audience was asked, "So, nobody wants to take up this offer?" Again, nobody moved. The speaker then responded with, "Excellent!!!"

To me, that was not an excellent situation because nobody was taking up the offer. The speaker's body language certainly did not convey that the situation was excellent! I must admit, I felt for the speaker because the presentation had been informative and anybody who was willing to try out the product that was being offered would have got great value from it. But my guess is that the audience assumed that the price would be too high and nobody was prepared to find out more about it. After the presentation was over, I managed to get myself into those reserved chairs just to find out the price of the package. And I was right, it was a very expensive mentoring program!

The lesson here for me was that the way you hold your body, that is your physiology, has a huge bearing on the energy you give off and how people respond to you. The premise here is that our body does not lie. It will reflect what is going on in our mind. That is a lesson for all those who are public figures, whether that be platform speaking or managing co-workers at a company. It is easy for people to know if you are congruent with what you are saying.

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