When you meet someone for the first time and you are trying to sum them up, do you look at their shoes?
This is known as a ‘non-verbal cue’ and in this vlog, Grant explains why we do that and how it relates to your business.
When I meet someone for the first time in business, I can’t help but look at their shoes.
That’s because my grandfather taught me that you can always tell a lot about someone from their shoes. How wealthy they are and their attention to detail as to how polished they are. Now, this may or may not be the case, but what we’re talking about with shoes is that they’re a signal to the total person.
Signalling in communications is really important. These are the things that are put across without any specific messaging.
Let me give you some examples; Expensive advertising campaigns can have a positive effect, irrelevant from the messaging that they’re actually saying. This is because the fact that a company has so much money to spend on advertising, in and of itself, suggests that they’re trustworthy and that there are a robust business. Moreover, if they’re willing to spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars themselves on communications, they are saying that they have faith in their own ability to win business and please consumers. And signalling is why, traditionally, big banks were lavish buildings with lots of marble and tall ceilings and impressive lighting because if you were going to deposit your money there, you had to know they are wealthy enough to be able to take it and look after it for you.
Similarly, imagine going to a shop and buying an expensive piece of jewelry or clothing and when it’s packaged up, someone giving it to you in a paper bag. Of course that doesn’t happen. You get these posh bags with rope handles or whatever else it is in order to elicit this view that you’ve just brought something luxurious.
So think about the nonverbal cues that you give in your business. Whether it’s what you wear when you’re face to face, how your website looks, what you package goods and services in… All of these things become really, really important in the subconscious.
And now if you excuse me, I’ve got some shoe polishing to be getting on with it.
