How To Sell Yourself

Selling Your Likability 41

it sees. You look as

though you don’t like your

audience and your audi-

ence dislikes you back.

For example, the closed

face almost defeated

George W. Bush in 2000.

The neutral face. This

is the name I give to the

face you show when noth-

ing moves but the mouth.

It’s the most common

public-speaking and tele-

vision-interviewee face.

The face is naked. We

don’t want the audience to

see us naked, so we “put

it away.” We hide it. We

Closed face: The closed face is perceived as an angry, uptight face. It says “I
don’t like you” and the audience doesn’t like you back. George W. Bush used
it throughout the 2000 presidential campaign.

Neutral face: The neutral face is a bored

face; the face of the dead. It was Al Gore’s

face in the 2000 election.