Posture and Authenticity

To some people, having posture means "fake it until you make it." They will tell you that if you don't believe in your product or business opportunity, you should "borrow" someone else's belief.I tried that. It didn't work for me!Honesty has always been very important to me. Sometimes during my network marketing career, I have been told to use language that I felt was misleading or manipulative. I couldn't pull it off. I am quite sure the person I was speaking to knew that my skin was crawling even though they could not see me over the phone! And forget using that language face-to-face, I could not go there.I believe that first hand experience is always the best and certainly makes it easy to have confidence in what you are presenting, but you don't always need it to believe in what you are saying. If you know for a fact that what you have benefits others, you can portray that with confidence. It is not the same as borrowing someone else's belief. It is developing that belief and faith and confidence for yourself through observation and connecting with others who have the experience.Of course, you can always set up an appointment for your prospective customer or business partner to speak with someone who has the experience. But even when setting this up, you need to be able to portray that you are putting them in contact with someone who can help them and answer their questions. You don't want them to feel like you are throwing them to the wolves for the "close." And if you are uncomfortable with the way this other person speaks to people, you will lose credibility (and a piece of yourself) by letting them talk to your prospect.In the book Go Givers Sell More, posture is described as knowing who you are and the value of what you can offer to others, without being attached to the outcome. Instead of focusing on yourself and what you need, you focus on what the other person needs. You have confidence that you offer value just by being yourself and presenting what you believe to be true. And if they don't see the value, it's OK because not everyone will.When you are being authentic in a conversation with someone, you should be able to:Smile
Speak clearly, with passion
Look at them, not away from themIf you cannot do those things, you are probably not being authentic! You are saying something that you do not believe. If it doesn't feel right to you, don't say it, no matter who told you to say it that way! I don't care how successful they have been with that script. It will not work for you if you can't be authentic when using it.Even when I shoot a video, I have an idea of where I am going with it but I never have a complete script. I never memorize exactly what I will say. It comes across much better that way.Learn to be more like animals. My pets are never pretentious! They always know who they are, what they want, and where they are going.