The impact of bodily behaviors of sales presentations on charisma evaluations by consumers: A time-series perspective

Significant resources are spent each year on sales forces and the means by which to enhance their effectiveness during a sales interaction or presentation. Specifically, studies point to the importance of charismatic nonverbal cues (for example, facial expressions, gestures) in impres-sion formation. However, these behaviors are mainly perceived in an unconscious manner, making behavior measurement a difficult task. Moreover, existing research is dominated by post-exposure measures and neglects customers’ processing of impressions over time. This research addresses the outlined gaps and introduces continuous measurement of sales presen-tations based on different data sources. First, we provide novel insights by applying high-precision coding of 141 nonverbal behaviors of 22 videotaped sales presentations using body actions and posture coding procedures. Second, this study uses an innovative approach to cap-ture customer impressions of sales representatives’ charisma in real-time by means of a pro-gram analyzer, which allows evaluative measurements while concurrently being exposed to sales presentations. This time-series evaluation approach contributes to the understanding of impression formation and allows for linking nonverbal sales behaviors to customers’ evalua-tions over the course of time. Findings from a large sample experimental study (n = 663) show that negative opinions are formed somewhat faster than positive ones. In addition, body movements (e.g., head/trunk/leg/knee movements, arm actions) driving these impressions are the same for the first few seconds and for longer periods.