This is a Guest Post from Paul Archer, of Archer Training.

It was 8 in the morning. Dublin was sublime. The early morning mist was drifting over the River Liffey and there I was, sitting in a client meeting, awaiting the boss to arrive. In she walked, or should I say glided. An entrance which exuded confidence, humility, accomplishment. A glide across the room which was practised and fluent. She oozed success with every movement.

How do some people do this? What secret do they have to make that perfect first impression? Read on to discover the Seven Secrets of Physical Success.

Entering the Room

The first impression is vital, everyone knows that. So when entering a room for the first time, maybe with a customer sitting at a desk or a meeting room, make sure your movements give the right first impression. The keys to entering a room are to stand tall and then do slow and deliberate movement.

Movement

Stand tall, actors use the wall to adjust their posture and stance. Stand with your back to the wall and this gives you the perfect posture to use. Then make every movement slow and deliberate. Fast jerky movements just give the wrong impression of nervousness. Make every movement deliberate and with a purpose. This might sound odd, but just watch people doing the same thing and their nerves will get the better of them via unnecessary movement. You see your nerves come through your periphery limbs. Your legs and arms are where we show our nerves. Legs show nerves through pointless movement. Every movement must have a purpose

Smile

The human smile is the most important rapport building skill known to mankind. We’ve smiled for thousands of years as a peace gesture. It evolves from our times as apes when the smile showed no fighting intent, almost a submissive gesture amongst primates. A smile also injects your body full of endorphins, the body’s natural “feel good” drug.

Posture

Your posture says reams about the person you are. Are you slouched, angled? Are your feet and legs balanced or do you lean from one to the other, constantly moving and shuffling. This is an art not a science and you can choose to stand whichever way you wish after all it’s a free world. But if you want to create a great first impression, stand solid and balanced. Feet about the same width as your shoulders and slightly angled away from your body, but not like a penguin! Legs still but using the knees as natural hydraulics.

Body looking tall and confident. Arms by the sides when not in use and gesturing with full arms when the words require. The mid line from your forehead to the floor should never be blocked. Keep it open and clear to give a natural welcoming image. Head balanced, care the submissive tilt of the head unless you want to give an impression of being intrigued.

A final point about posture. Do you stand or sit? In a large group setting you must stand to give a confident and persuasive talk. With two or three people, sitting is appropriate. If you are very tall, try to keep your eye level the same as the customer, so you might want to sit down to balance the eye level with your customer. Never look down on customers! It’s now been proven that your body affects your state of mind. A confident and assured stance and posture will make you feel good. And this has a knock on effect on your performance.

Eye Contact

Give plenty of it, as much as your customer. Care with locking onto a nose or one eye. Try to gaze in a triangle across your customers face. Eye to eye to mouth, back to eye and so on. This gives a warm friendly eye contact. When you’re talking you want to give eye contact pretty much all the time but when listening this is your chance to look away every now and then. Looking away and upwards sends the signal that you are listening and thinking about what the customer is saying.

With a group of people your eye contact must be shared amongst everyone in a natural style. Give each person 2 or 3 seconds of eye contact. No more, no less and share this contact around the room in a natural sporadic manner. Aim to keep your eyes on the audience 95% of the time. Be careful with slides or visual aids that take your eye contact away from the audience. In fact, challenge yourself if you use slides with lots of words and boring old bullets. Go on ask yourself the question and honestly answer it. Are they merely your speech notes?

Listening

Active listening techniques do work but make them natural. Use the eye contact tip and look away when listening to show thinking. An other good tip is to mirror your facial expressions with your customers. Live what they are saying with your expressions of interest, excitement, being intrigued. Work those eye brows and the forehead expressions. Reflect their words with your facial expressions is a great listening skill.

Breath

Take your time, most speakers are faster than they should be. Remember time travels differently when you are public speaking and it appears to go slower for us, therefore we try and rush things. Nerves make us rush our speech. Slow down and take breaths and relax at every breath you take. Have confidence with your pauses. Drink water if you wish or have some form of anchor to remind yourself to slow down.

Paul Archer is an international sales speaker, sales trainer, author and coach based in the UK. He specializes in rapport selling and rapport coaching and can ignite his audiences large or small. For more information on Paul and his training courses, visit www.paularcher.com, where you’ll also find his own sales blog, too!