Business Talk: Harald Sontowski reveals the concept called “quality of the first contact”

Nuremberg, 06.02.2012

aha!TALENTEXPERTS is SELLBYTEL´s specialist in Training & Coaching. In our Business Talk, Managing Director Harald Sontowksi explains how to raise the success in customer meetings as well as in presentations.


Mr. Sontowski – from your point of view, can you describe what is evident for a successful customer meeting?

Times of high sales pressure are gone. This does not mean that the pressure in sales nowadays has dropped. What I want to say is: Who wants to present himself successfully, has to fetch and chain the audience in an emotional way. This challenge we call the concept of “quality of the first contact.”


What do you mean exactly?

When two people come together in one meeting, there is a certain quality in contact between them. This quality describes for example the atmosphere between seller and buyer. And right within this meeting not the facts and figures are responsible for a decision. The determing factor is the buyer´s gut instinct. This awareness is what is new! Without a reliable gut feeling, best profound arguments do not have any kind of chance. This has been proven by the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). All these facts are leading us to a lot of questions: What can we do to make a client feel comfortable? How to supplement an already existing unique selling proposition of a product by an additional emotional message? And most of all: How can you create in a short period an emotional relation and so on a high “quality of the first contact”?


Those are many questions. Did you find the answers?

Due to the fact our subconscious mind cannot be fooled, there is no panacea. Our determining inner instance for a good gut feeling is the limbic system. This system does not know a certain language. Instead it is the famous and long time misunderstood “first impression” becoming the focal point, we concentrate on. The “Prussian virtues” of hard work and sense of duty are counting more than ever. And most of all: Authentic appearance is valued more than fine techniques. Go for telling a story, not for counting cause. This means: inspiration is better than penetration. And of course: you should practice, practice and practice.