Here are the highlights from our Super Six session with The Celebrity Profiler, Alan Stevens
Coach:
Alan Stevens
Key Points
- Facial features are a history of one’s personality, and there are different ways to respond and act towards different facial expressions and twitches
- How to approach a listing presentation with John McGrath and Monika Tu, based on their facial profiles.
Quote
“The more you understand your own traits, you therefore understand how people see you, and you can then react with them in a way that makes a better connection with them.”
Video Notes/Transcript
I’ll give you a bit of an overview so that you understand what reading people is all about, or how you go about it and the purpose for it, and then we’ll look at some specific examples.
So with the facial features, and if you think about it, if you look at somebody who’s been working out, you know that they’re fit because of the muscle structure that they have. If you look at somebody’s who more sedentary, you can see that as well.
Now if you think about it, if you’re feeling happy, your body’s going to show it as well. If you’re feeling unhappy, you’re bent over, same as that. So the end result is your physiology and neurology are linked all the time.
If you think in a particular way, you’re going to use the same muscles and ridges in your face. You’re going to move those muscles and create crevices, ridges, and that gives away the way you like to think. So your face is a history of your personality.
To know how you’re actually feeling, the little expressions on your face, you get these little twitches that when you first hear something or see something, you respond unconsciously and then the conscious mind steps in after than, and when it does, it shuts it off and the expression disappears.
Now that expression can be as fast as a 1/5 of a second down to 1/25 of a second, so it’s just fleeting, but in that one moment it gives away the way that person really feels. You’ve got their emotion straight away.
So if you’ve said something to them and you get a little twitch on the side of the mouth, for instance, you know that they didn’t really enjoy it. They had a problem with what you actually said. You can pick it up quickly. Then the words you use, how you actually speak to the person.
So your facial features tell me your personality, therefore I know how I should talk to you, I then start using those words, and then I look for the expressions and the body language that comes back and I know straight away whether I’ve got a connection with you or not, so that’s what it’s all about.
Now I’ve been doing this with everything from young children right through to senior adults. There’s no limitation on anybody that you can read. In fact, you don’t need to have them in the room with you. All you need is their photograph.
So how many times have you found, and I’m looking around the room at a couple people here that you probably would have this experience, you’ve gone up to somebody and when you’ve first met them and you’ve gone up to shake their hand, they’ve stepped away from you.
Then when you first start to talk to them, how many times have you found that somebody you’ve been talking to, everything sounded right but all of a sudden they just seem to switch off altogether, where you’ve oversold the deal.
There’s a number of people in this room I can see are very analytical so you need a lot of information when you’re talking to people, which means you’re going to talk to other people in the same way. And the result with that is, you’re now going to actually give them too much information and they’ll switch off.
At the end of the day, the more you understand your own traits, you therefore understand how people see you, and you can then react with them in a way that makes a better connection with them.
Now, with John for instance, the larger area down here, he likes to make his decisions really quickly but he’s also analytical, so he needs to analyse everything first, get that information, and then, “Let’s get on with it. Give me the best way to do it.” So, man of action. He’s also concise when he’s speaking.
You have to make sure that you’ve got your presentation put together properly. It needs to be structured. It can’t bouncing around the place. It’s got to be A through to Z in the right order, showing the connection. It’s got to have all the detail there, the information, so he can get all his details from it.
And at the same time, he wants to just move quickly and when he talks to you, it’s going to be fairly concise, so you have to respond in the same way. You present it that way, he’s going to enjoy it.
Monika, when I said before, giving people some space when you meet them for the first time, with Monika I’d actually reach out, shake hands, I’d let her set up the space. And in fact, one of things that I would do is I would walk towards her but then stop and let her set the distance up and what I usually do if I’ve got tables and things like that, I go to a point, let the person come to me and that’s how I’ll met them because you don’t step into their space because otherwise you get that pull back.
Even if they don’t move back, you’ll see it in their expressions that you’ve invaded. Monika’s very quick to give and she’s a little bit more to-the-point, but you get a bit more conversation out of her. At the same time, she’s very much self-reliant, no nonsense.
What I look at is the tolerance level as well. Everyone’s tolerant most of the time, but under stress, people who have the closer-set eyes, if you interrupt them when they’re doing something they’re really focused on it, they don’t like. They don’t respect it.
Some people I can go up to and go, “Right.” I can see that they’re busy. I can just say, “Look, can you come over, give me a hand?” and they’re quite happy to come and help me. But then other people will go, or I go and tap them on the shoulder and say, “Come here and help me.” Well, they may come over physically, their mind’s still going to be on the issue that they’re working on and they’re going to feel like they’ve been disrespected because what they were doing is important, and I’ve virtually said, “Well, what I’m doing is far more important than you.”
