Selling With Negative Emotions—Better Than None? Nonverbal Expressiveness During Sales Presentations: An Experimental Approach

Nonverbal communication constitutes a driving force for selling success. Drawing on the Emotions as Social Information (EASI) model, this research investigates the impact of sales-people’s nonverbal expressiveness (manifested through dynamic facial, bodily, and vocal cues) and customer responses in a selling context. Innovative techniques for dynamic and ho-listic measurement of nonverbal signals are employed in a sales context, including facial recognition software, body action and posture coding, and voice analysis. A program analyzer traces customers’ real-time responses during exposure to videotaped sales presentations. Find-ings from large-scale experimental studies, manipulating nonverbal expressiveness (IV: dy-namic vs. restrained) in Study 1 show that expressive presentations lead to more favorable customer evaluations (DVs). Positive facial expressions—such as happiness—and direct head orientation significantly improve customer responses. Moreover, in line with findings in ne-gotiation contexts, this study shows that under certain conditions, subtle displays of negative emotions—such as anger—can elicit positive responses in personal selling contexts. Study 2 manipulates product type (IV: hedonic vs. utilitarian) and finds that nonverbal expressiveness is more influential for hedonic offerings. This research provides novel insights into the com-plex dynamics of nonverbal communication and offers managerial guidance on effectively managing such behaviors in sales interactions.