38 How to Sell Yourself
A few corollaries already suggested
- We never buy from a seller we don’t like.
- Jurors almost never convict a defendant they really like or
one whose attorney presents the client as wronged by the
system. The case almost always results in an acquittal or,
at worst, a hung jury. - We rarely become close friends with people we genuinely
dislike. - We hardly ever hire the job applicant we don’t like.
- We certainly don’t promote the unlikable one.
- We learn better in the classroom of the teacher we like
and who appears to like us. This is true even when that
teacher is strict disciplinarian. - We never vote for the candidate we dislike most. In fact, even
when we think the more unlikable one would do a better job,
chances are we’ll not even go to the polling place this time. - We all know people we don’t care for. We go out of our
way not to socialize with them. We think, “We have noth-
ing in common.” - We all have family members we don’t like, and the only
reason we put up with them is just that: They’re family. - We all have colleagues at work with varying degrees of
likability. Which ones do we gravitate to at break time?
Another inescapable fact: I may like someone you don’t like
and vice versa. So the logical conclusion is that there’s no such
thing as being liked by everyone. But the objective is to communi-
cate in such a way that most of your audience will find you likable.
Keys to likability
Your use of face, body, and voice are your keys to likability.
Obviously, we’re all using them constantly to communicate. But
most of us are using them incorrectly.
Using your face
The first thing the audience sees is your face. It’s hard to real-
ize, but that first look is going to cause the audience to make a