Just because we’re doing a lot of things virtually now doesn’t mean image is not important. You may not have to wear pants or shoes a lot of the time, but you still have to work on creating that charisma and emanating a confidence that attracts clients and investors to you. Scott Carson rings on professional image and dating coach Kimmy Seltzer to discuss how you can do this through her charisma quotient. You will learn that confidence does not all come from the inside; the outside plays a huge part too! Listen in as Kimmy shares some simple image improving and confidence boosting hacks that will help you attract investors and improve your networking. She also has a couple of giveaways to help you on your path – great resources that you would not want to miss.

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The Charisma Quotient: Professional Image Tips From Confidence Coach Kimmy Seltzer

We have a great episode with one of my favorite people out there who is doing an amazing job. I love what we’re going to be talking about. It’s one of the most important things that a lot of people struggle with coming from being a full-time employee, working for somebody, to going out on their own. It’s something that a lot of people are sucking at with the way the world is. Before we dive into that, as always, I’m honored to have you here. Welcome to the show.

You can always catch the replays to every Note Night in America episode by going to WeCloseNotes.tv. That will take you directly to our YouTube channel. Make sure while you’re there, you hit the subscribe button so you are alerted to all the great stuff that we have available for you whether it’s our podcast episodes for Note Night in America. We’re always honored to have you there for that. You can grab and listen to every Note Night in America episode on wherever you’ve downloaded, listen to your favorite podcast or at our YouTube channel or at WeCloseNotes.com as well.

I want to give you a big shout-out for making the Note Closers Show one of the hottest real estate podcasts out there. We may end up going to over 30 million listens in July 2020 from when we started out. I’m excited to be a part of it. We have a special guest, our good friend, Kimmy Seltzer, here. She is a life coach who has done many things out there. If you don’t know who she is, you want to check out her podcast, the Charisma Quotient. She is a professional life coach and image consultant. This lady is amazing. I met her in San Diego at the New Media Summit. You probably read of her on the Note Closers Show. We had her on a while back. I was honored to be a guest on her show as well. She’s a great person. I love her energy. We are so honored to have you here, Kimmy, to help our audience out there develop a little bit more charisma online or in-person and take their investing to a whole new level. Welcome to Note Night in America.

Thank you for having me.

You have been working with celebrities. You’ve been on TV. You’ve had a long-time running podcast on a variety of issues. Before COVID, you were flying out and working with people, helping them date, helping them to connect with people, help them to get over their stage fright or connect fright?

Those were the days when we all were flying and connecting in person. I missed those days and we will be back. That’s why I am telling a lot of people that this is the perfect time to work on some of this stuff in the comfort of your own home. Truth be told what shows up in one area of your life, it’ll be Zoom or if you’re single, Bumble and Tinder, or even talking on the phone, usually shows up in other areas of your life. That is in person as well. We’re going to go into all of that. These are skills. It doesn’t matter whether you’re single or trying to attract more business, it’s all the same. I’m super excited about this topic.

Do you want me to jump in as they’re relevant or wait until you get to the point where you want to take questions?

I prefer conversation. I can’t stand hearing myself talk for an hour. Please chime in if anyone has questions. It seems like a good point. I would love that. Scott, thank you for the introduction. I love that we did connect over coffee talk. That’s what I want to talk about. The overriding theme is even though Scott and I met at a podcast summit. It was a professional summit. The reason why Scott and I are friends doing business together was that we liked each other. I want to highlight how strong the likability factor is when it comes to connecting and networking. Regardless if you are doing business, trying to attract more people, love or friends in your life, it all is the same skillset. It’s not about what you know, but how a person feels when they meet you. Scott did such a great job introducing me. You can read my bio. I almost chuckle when I look at my professional experience, but I want to go over my own story because it was my own transformation that thrust me into what I do and the reason why I’m passionate about doing what I do.

It relates to a lot of what we’re going to talk about now. I wasn’t always this happy-go-lucky girl skipping in my dress and heels. It started with the bad mom outfit. I didn’t have a picture of me. It was before iPhones. I was trying to find a picture of my bad outfit. I thought this would be the next best option. My story is that a long time ago in a land far away named Chicago, I lived as a traditional person. I was married at the time. I had the picket fence, the house, a couple of kids and the dog.

If you were to ask me what my life was going to look like and be, I thought that’s what it was going to be. I had a very traditional job as a therapist. I went and I collected my paycheck. I help people. I liked it, but I could not predict that my life would look like it does now. A lot of times when things happen in your life, you’re about to hear what happened, that’s usually the best teaching moments. It usually takes sometimes adversity in your life to confront some of those things. For me, that’s what thrust me into the passion that I have right now and helping people look and feel their best. They attract what they want, increase their confidence and whether it’s money or love, it’s all the same.

What happened is we all pick up as a family. We move across the country and we land here in Lalaland. That is Los Angeles for those of you who don’t know. I joke, we ended up doing what all the other people here do. We get a divorce. There were mega issues going on in this little fairy tale and story, but I have to say on a serious note, it was one of the saddest, most horrifying moments of my life. I remember looking in the mirror and seeing a sad girl. It was like my whole life as I knew it came to a screeching halt. It was like the record stopped. My traditional life went “poof” away. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I didn’t know how I was going to have the confidence to go out there and have a new career, attract love, and start my life over.

Here I was in this new town, in this new castle, not with my traditional life anymore. I had a bunch of black clothes to show for it. If you saw me back then, you would have seen a woman that always wore black. The clothes were always like three sizes too big. I didn’t even know that my body was also transforming. I still have the nursing bras on. I wasn’t nursing any longer, FYI. That shows you how stuck I was. Here’s the thing that’s important in this story is that before this happened, as you heard me telling it, I considered myself confident.

I thought I could connect with people. I didn’t have that life. I had a very comfortable, cozy life that I had a lot of practice in. I didn’t have a lot of practice in this new life. I remember I didn’t know how. At that moment, when I looked in the mirror, I was going to get out of my own way. Up until then, as a therapist, I always was under the belief that you had to work from the inside out, but you had to do all this internal work in order to get past things, to get what you want. The inside is super important. Up until this moment, I had done all this work. I was a therapist for God’s sake.

I should have known better. I had a great support system. I did a lot of work on my own. I went to counseling. I went to therapy, but I still was stuck. My confidence was completely shattered. I remember one day, this was like the defining moment and what we’re going to talk about now, is that I looked in the mirror and I was horrified. I remember that fed up feeling like I have got to do something. What does a girl do when nothing fits her? She goes shopping. Shopping therapy, I thought, “Maybe I’ll get some new stuff and I’ll feel better. I go to the store and what am I doing? I’m up-leveling myself getting all new clothes, but no I’m picking all the same things, black, oversized clothes, what I considered my black cloaks to keep me invisible from the world. I remember this personal shopper, this woman to this day, probably still doesn’t know she changed my life. I feel like there’s always little mentors and angels that come into your life at certain moments.

She was that person. She said, “Ma’am, I’ve been watching you and I really think you should try this on.” She holds up this red dress. I thought it looked too small. I said, “That’s so sweet of you, but that isn’t my size. That is not my color.” She said, “Ma’am, that is your color. That is your size. Try it on.” I call it my red dress moment. It was like she hit me over the head with that red dress. Now, I have a ton of red dresses. My point was I put it on. I twirled around like Cinderella. I looked in the mirror. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I saw a princess before me. It was this visceral response that I got seeing myself in a different light.

I bought that costume that day. I call it a costume because I still don’t believe that was me. I walked out into the world and all this magic started happening. New suitors began to come my way. New opportunities started knocking on my door. Everything you see in my bio started happening. I know that sounds like a little airy-fairy, but it truly is the magic when you start putting yourself into action and doing things that are different for yourself. I realized at that moment that there was a symbiotic relationship between the outer and the inner when it comes to confidence, connection, to feeling charismatic and that in turn helped me get out of my own way.

I also realized that the black cloak was a way to keep me small, to keep me invisible because I was so in my head, I didn’t know how to talk to men. I used to think you guys were aliens. I didn’t have the language, the communication skills to do that. I had John Gray on my podcast. If you are interested, he’s referencing a book, Men are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. He’s amazing. The truth was that I realized that so much of what confidence was, had to do with my experience. At that moment, I didn’t have experience around being single, especially as a single mom.

That is where everything started and ended. My last life ended, my new one began. It created this passion for what I do now. No longer do I work from the inside out, I work from the outside in. What is it that I do? I do a lot as you can see because I’m a therapist, because I’m also a dating coach, a confidence coach, and an image coach. For me, I wanted to study all those different modalities because we’re all complex. I don’t think there’s one approach or one cookie-cutter approach that is one size fits all that helps people get unstuck in different areas of their life.

 

It’s crucial to come to it at all different angles. When I work with people, whether it’s to better their social confidence or get a great style, whether it’s a dating image or a business image, or maybe it’s to attract love in your life, I’m always starting from the beginning. That is your story. That’s the therapist in me. I look for patterns. I look for where things started and how we can disrupt those patterns to get a different result. We create goals and helping you get there because that’s why I caught myself these days more of a strategist than anything. I believe that it takes different strategies so that you can break those habits and patterns that you’ve created over time.

That’s where the Charisma Quotient formula is important. It’s the crust and the foundation of how I work with people. It’s the name of my podcast, hopefully, one day my book. Within that are three ingredients, these three ingredients are the formula that’s going to help you not suck at networking, dating and connecting. I’m going to go through those components, but it has to do with your style, emotional and social IQ. What are some reasons why you think you suck at networking or connecting? There’s something about this title that attracted you to this. I will say that there are probably things that you are awesome in. You probably realize that there are some things you can use a little help in.

James says he’s stuck in his daily grind. I mentioned sometimes we get too slammed, not enough time in the day to get updated. Let’s get clean and unwrinkled, let me throw that on first, and go from there.

That being stuck, whether it’s the daily grind, whether it’s stuck in your mindset or stuck in the black clothes, like being stuck is so paralyzing. There are a lot of different reasons for that.

We got somebody that says, “I’m overwhelmed as it is. I don’t have the extra money in my budget to go update my wardrobe for the most part. I’m afraid I’m going to grow out of what I’m in and back into something smaller after Corona.”

Being busy, overwhelmed, feeling stuck and all of these things can keep you almost at that same level of not networking and connecting because you don’t have the energy for that. If you’re overwhelmed, it’s hard to find the energy to go out and even talk to people. Nowadays, let’s be real and in COVID, we’re all getting zoomed out even. We need to have some space and time and have the energy to do that. I’m glad that you all are mentioning some of the variables. Here’s the truth. No matter what you have thought about in your head of the reasons why networking and connecting are hard for you, the real reason why you suck at networking and dating boils down to three things.

Within those three things, there are all these other like sub-categories that you guys are talking about. These are the three things that I want to go over because if you are able to make space, time and energy to dedicate and working on these three areas, I promise you we’ll start getting some traction. The first has to do with charisma. We’re going to go over that. It’s building your confidence and having the conversation skills to connect. I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve worked with clients that when we work on these three areas, they get something that I call is the charisma glow.

I even coined a term for it because people will say, “Kim, I can’t believe it. These people think I got a facial. My friends are saying I lost weight.” There’s this glow about you when you’re able to work on some of these areas that will give you more of that sense of connection. Why do I call it the Charisma Quotient? I love charisma. When you do the research and you look at the research, charisma is something that is learned. A lot of people don’t realize that people are like, “That person is born being charismatic,” and that’s simply not true.

Why I like to know that it’s learned means that it’s teachable. I’ve seen evidence of that from age 16 all the way up to 85. Age is of no consequence. Gender is of no consequence. These are some of the skills that can be learned. To me, what charisma is all about is it’s creating a magnetism that draws people to you. It’s letting go of things in your head. It’s letting go of overwhelm. It’s creating space and time in your day so that you have these connections and use your charisma to create that.

It also is a confidence booster. Charisma and confidence go hand in hand. We’ll talk a little more about that. These are the three secret ingredients to my Charisma Quotient. We’re going to start with the style piece. I believe it’s the easiest and quickest way to gain the confidence evidenced by my own story, the red dress. There’s a lot of research that will back that up. Before we get into that, I want to talk about confidence because even if you’re thinking that you’re overwhelmed, overworked, you don’t have time, and all those things that you feel are not working for you. When you have that confidence, the confidence will help you get over some of those hurdles that you think are keeping you stuck. I want to ask you when you hear the word confidence, what do you think that means? It’s a big word. A lot of people use it.

A positive outlook on oneself, knowing your environment. Confidence comes from knowing what you’re doing. Be sure of yourself and comfortable in your own skin.

All of that is true. I define confidence a little bit differently than a lot of people. I don’t believe there’s one person out there that’s not confident. The reason is that when I work with people, the first thing that I always try to figure out is what is an area in your life that you do feel confident in? Everybody has one area. If you look at that area that you feel confident in, it’s usually because you have experience and you’ve had positive experience around it. When you don’t feel confident, it’s usually because you haven’t had enough practice or experience around it, or you’ve had negative exposure to it.

For instance, in my case, I thought I was a confident person until the divorce hit and my confidence went way down. I thought all my confidence went way down, but that wasn’t true. I back then felt good as a parent and a new parent. I felt good at cooking. I could name some areas I felt good in. The area I did not feel good about is dating. Why? I didn’t have practice. I didn’t know how to date as an older woman with two young kids. I didn’t think I was lovable. I didn’t think I was good enough. My confidence was shot.

I want to go over the three areas of confidence because this is good to do an assessment for yourself. There are three different kinds. You have an inner confidence. You have external confidence on the outside. You also have your social confidence. Your external confidence has to do with your style of intelligence. This is what I love helping people with and where we start, it’s your body image. It’s your physicality. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you love yourself? Do you think you’re a beautiful person? Do you think you’re handsome? It’s your outer beauty. It’s your style. It’s your sex appeal. It’s all of it.

When you feel comfortable in your skin, as somebody mentioned, and good in your body, you will come across that way. When you walk into a networking event and when you walk on stage or you walk onto a date, you already have a leg up because you feel good in your body and you love it. That’s why I love working with people in their style. It’s one of the quickest gateways into your confidence. For those ladies, when you’re having a good hair day, it’s a good day. I have to admit. I was happy with my hair now, so I already felt confident.

I’m going to share with you research that backs this up. For all of you on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, 1 being the worst. Where are you in your style confidence, in your body confidence, in all of these things? Think about first impressions. When you first walk in a room, are you fidgety? Are you not feeling good in your clothes? Do you wish you could lose weight? Where are you? Everything that you are putting on your body, you are communicating something to the world. If you don’t feel good in your style or in your body, that’s okay. Take note of that for yourself and maybe that’s why we’re not seeing lower numbers because maybe it’s harder for you to admit that you have a lower number. I don’t know. That’s for you to understand about yourself because that’s going to help you with your confidence.

 

I’m going to show you a lot of before and after throughout this. Know that these are real people that I’ve worked with and they’ve all said, “Yes, for me to show and inspire you through their transformation.” For instance, there is this woman who wanted to up-level her love life and her business life. She was getting nowhere because of how she was coming across in her clothes. She put something online to attract dates and it wasn’t happening. She was trying to get a higher position in her job, it wasn’t happening. What was strange is that when I got on the phone with her, it was like a complete mismatch of how she was advertising herself.

When we talk about style, it’s how you’re marketing yourself. I also invite you to think about how you’re marketing yourself online. What does your website picture look like? Maybe you look great in person, but then your pictures aren’t good. There’s an incongruency. With this woman, there was an incongruency because she was lovely. She was so feminine. Her voice was soft and she was warm. I say feminine and laughed because she knew that her image had a lot of masculine energy.

I say that out loud because she said that out loud. She knew that. When you talk to her, that wasn’t true. We went shopping and this happened. You better believe when we put this picture up online that she got some action. She started dating up a storm and she landed a beautiful man in her life. They ended up getting married. Usually, what we feel on the inside sometimes is a reflection from the outside, like in my case, the black cloak. Sometimes there’s also in congruency so paying attention to that. Enhancing your attitude, your poise or wardrobe is going to boost how you feel about yourself. When you feel better about yourself, you make better decisions. You’re more adventurous. You have more energy. That also impacts the nonverbal signals that people will be sending out to you.

This is the study I was talking about, Scott. They found in this study in the New York Times that there is a direct correlation between the clothes you wear and the performance that you have in business, in dating and in everything. There were a bunch of guys. They said, “Here, you are doctors.” They put on white coats. The guys who were doctors, they didn’t have white coats on. They were given some tasks. The guys who had the white coat on outperformed the real doctors. What they found is that the brain shifted when they did a study in their brain when people wore different clothing. They coined the term enclothed cognition meaning that there’s scientific proof that when you wear certain things, your performance goes up.

It also has to do with how people trust you, relate to you, all of it. It’s a powerful thing. We don’t have time to go into all of it but know that image is super important. James Gray is the author of this book called The Winning Image. It’s an old book, but it’s a great one. He defines the image well. It’s a way that others perceive you and that determines how they will treat you. This has to do with, will they comply with your requests? Do they trust you with information? They’ll give you access to decision-makers and higher-up people if they liked the way that you’re presenting, pay you a certain salary, hire you for purchases and services.

I have to digress. I have to tell another sub-story of mine and my journey. I have a lot of stories. I had a red dress. Now it was time for me to get into this career that I was getting passionate about, doing makeovers on people from inside and out. I hired this image consultant to train me. I wanted to shadow her because there’s no real program out there that was like an MBA or a Master’s in Image Consulting. I had to create my own. I paid this woman a lot of money to teach me how to do it. I remember going to meet her for the first time. All I had on my wardrobe was a bunch of black clothes that were still hanging there and the red dress. The red dress wasn’t appropriate to meet this woman.

I bought something else thinking that I was up-leveling myself. It wasn’t. I went into Lucky Jeans instead of Gap. I put a rider jacket on. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I thought I looked better than the frumpy mom. I go and I meet her and she’s this fabulous woman who’s dressed to the nines. I show up wide-eyed, a bushy tail, all excited to go. She crosses her arms. She looks at me up and down. She says, “You think people will spend $10,000 with you looking like that? You look like a tired mom.” I remember my wide eyes filling with tears and my tail going down.

At that moment, I was hurt. Later on, I realized she was right. In my mindset, I was still the frumpy mom. I didn’t value that. Even if you’re well-dressed or maybe you think you are, sometimes the value that you put into yourself isn’t as high as it should be. You are taking inventory for yourself and knowing that clothes and the accessories you wear, and how you invest in yourself is a lot of what you get back. It’s super important to think about these things.

There is this other woman who thought she was the ugly duckling in her family. Her two sisters were the pretty ones. She was the smart one. I showed her how she could be smart and pretty at the same time and have more confidence as she was going out there. For her, she wanted more confidence with many things, with her business, how to flirt, and how to attract love. There is also this guy. What was interesting about him is that he was super wealthy. He had this amazing business but he could not, for the life of him, go out and attract your customers and/or women.

He would have other people go out and network for him because he was shy and a little awkward. He didn’t know what to say to people. I had to work with his style first and look at even how the body language shifts. That’s another piece to this. Do you know that now it takes only seven seconds to make a first impression? It’s crazy. It used to be 30 seconds, but now with Tinder and Bumble, it’s gotten quick. Here’s the thing that goes on in the brain. This isn’t me talking. This is research.

People are making judgments and assumptions on two things and two things only. It is the clothes that you wear. That’s why I’m harping on the clothes and the attitude that you have. The attitude has to do with body language. It’s not rocket science to know that people are attracted to happy, confident, relaxed people. I can’t tell you how many times before COVID hit, I would go out and help people network. I would help people flirt. I do that even virtually now. When you’re caught up in the stress, the environment and overwhelm and all those things that you were talking about in the beginning, it leaks in your body language.

You might seem gloomy. You might seem to have a frown face. You might seem angry or negative. Maybe not towards the person you’re talking to, but because you’re stressed out and you’re thinking about it, it leaks out into your body. People might make a judgment call on you falsely. That’s why it’s super important to think about your body language, to think about your moods. Give yourself time before you go out socializing or networking so that you can create that. A quick exercise. First impressions are quick. What do you think she does for a living? Counselor and teacher, I get that a lot.

Judge?

I’ve never heard a judge before. That’s funny. Accounting and librarian, I always get that.

Teacher online.

Notice how no one is saying professions that are a little more fun like entertainment or cheerleader or something like that. Why do I do this all over the world? I give webinars and talks and every time somebody says accountant and librarian. Why? It’s because of what she’s wearing and the attitude that she has. A lot of people react to her glasses or her hair is in a bun. She’s wearing something frumpy. She’s not smiling. She’s not happy. When you see the next picture, you’re going to be blown away.

A little story on her because this is one of the most profound cases that I had. I was hired to do a style session with ten women for a professional photoshoot. They were all redoing their websites and up-leveling their business. I had two hours to shop with ten women on a street that had two stores. It’s not an easy task. They said, “Women, you can appreciate this?” I don’t know, magically, one of the stores had dresses for everybody except her. When I was looking for her, I see her in the corner and she’s crying. I went up to her and I said, ‘What’s wrong?” She’s like, “I don’t even know why I’m here. It’s like junior high all over again. I’m the ugly duckling. I’m the one that doesn’t go to prom. This is stupid. I should leave.”

I gave her a little tough love and a hug. I said, “I can totally appreciate you feeling this way, but this has nothing to do with your body and it has everything to do with this brand. She looked at me and I said, “Yeah, this brand isn’t fitting you. Will you give me another half hour? I want to go to the store across the street.” She said, “Okay.” Thank God, this other store had brands that completely fit her body. She never thought she could wear a dress. For her, for what she did for a living and all the networking she was doing and the website, it was crucial for her to get in a more feminine flair and to wear more dresses because she also did a lot of speaking.

We went to the store and Scott, to your point, she’s smiling. She has that confident language. Her networking skills soared after this. I worked with her on other things too. It started from the outside and then we went inward. What she did for a living is she was an executive coach, but she also worked with a lot of women and empowering women. That other image of her wasn’t landing with people because she didn’t look confident and empowering. She had to feel good about herself. I invite you also to think about the customers and the audience that you’re trying to track. Even if it’s the opposite sex, are you attracting what you want? If not, you got to take a look at what you’re putting out there. I often find that when people are trying to track like higher ticket packages or items or higher caliber, if you’re not dressed the part, they’re not going to trust that you are that mentor that can work for them and with them.

 

It’s the same thing with a guy I worked with. The same problem. He wanted to up-level in his business and also in love. It wasn’t until we went shopping and did a ton of coaching together that both ended up happening. Now notice in his body language, the confidence. I could do a whole other webinar, Scott on body language. Body language is powerful. When you have differences between men and women and understanding the fundamentals like body language signals that you’re sending, it will make a huge difference in the authority that you put out to the world and with your customers.

It’s important to know your body type when you are shopping. For women, there are five body types and it will increase your confidence in your clothes. It’s measuring your shoulders, your waist, your hips, and understanding what you are. For men, there’s not a lot of body types. There’s only three. Rest assured there are some tricks that men also have around clothes that will make a big difference in the way that you look and feel in your clothes. If any of you want to know what body type you are, I encourage you to go ahead and grab my Style Guide for Women. I go over the five body types and what clothes work for your body type and what clothes to stay away from. It’s almost a little cheat sheet. For men, it’s a man’s fashion manifesto.

I know you then secretly want to know this stuff and you don’t talk to your friends about it so here’s a chance to grab that. Also, I go over some grooming things. Men, you don’t have to worry about makeup and all that, but we do care about the grooming especially if you’re trying to attract a woman. You can grab that QR code as well if you are savvy on that. Here’s the thing. If you do download that, I also do these virtual makeover sessions that are super fun. Get ahold of me if you’re interested in doing that. I go over your specific body type in your style and getting you your signature style that matches your brand and all of that. That’s a super easy and fun step.

Body language is important when it comes to your first impressions and when you’re networking, 93% of communication is nonverbal. That’s crazy if you think about it. It’s not even what you say is as important as how you show up in your presentation. This is why I work from the outside in. It breaks all the barriers. If you’re approachable, you look warm and inviting and you look like you can be trusted both with your body language and your wardrobe, you’re already breaking that barrier.

Some easy hacks you can do especially because we’re Zooming all the time now, we’re taking meetings online, be mindful of your face, smile. Scott picked up right away the lack of smile on that woman’s face. Make eye contact, practice in the camera. When you’re doing Zoom conversations to look at the dot, not down. I looked disconnected even though I think I’m looking at you. Even technology-wise, you should get used to how you can make eye contact. It’s super powerful. Having enthusiastic expressions and be mindful of if you’re frowning, if you’re being too serious, if you’re looking away, if you’re getting distracted, or if you’re looking at your social media. All of those things make a huge difference in connection.

I’m going to go over the second ingredient and that is your inner confidence. Your inner confidence will leak out to when you’re meeting somebody. This has to do with your emotional IQ. Emotional IQ is a buzzword these days. It’s something I believe in and I teach with all my clients. It has to do with a lot of different factors. I’ll go over some main ones. Overall, it has to do with how resilient you are. Can you let things roll off your shoulder? If things don’t work out or pan out with a client, do you let it affect you with other people? Are you able to bounce back and not take it personally?

Your self-awareness, how aware are you of your own emotions or are you blindsided with that and too focused on other people or selling, and the facts. You’re not doing enough awareness and checking in with your body and how your body’s responding to things, how compassionate you are for yourself, giving yourself breaks. We’re all human. What connects people to people is that authenticity and how you express those things. If you were to do a self-assessment the same thing on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best, 1 being the worst, where are you at with your inner confidence? Your feelings of self-worth. Do you feel good enough to sit down with a client who’s about to give you $1 million? Even the attachment of money and how we value ourselves, it’s strongly related. Where are you at? Scott says an eight. “A two,” Agnes says. Thanks for your vulnerability with that. Even the fact that she said that. Four, this seems to be more where it’s landing for the inner.

This is huge. The inner confidence, when you are not feeling good about yourself inside. Maybe your style is great, your presentation’s great, but if you’re not feeling it, it’s going to leak out in other ways and it’s going to affect your sales. It’s going to affect the way that you move throughout a room and the way that people connect with you. The more you practice feeling good about yourself, learning how to express yourself. I’m going to give you some hacks at the end when we talk about the last pillar, the social piece and how you can express yourself, it’ll make a big difference.

Here are some things to think about as you think about your inner confidence. How authentic are you? This was one of the things that Scott and I connected right away. I love that he began with the story of the coffee because we both were so authentic with the way that we connected. We didn’t say, “What’s your podcast.” We didn’t start there. We started with, “I don’t have any creamer for my coffee. I was bummed.” I was authentic. Scott was generous to create some half and a half for me with whipped cream. To this day, we still connect on that. It’s been a running joke of our relationship.

People feel that authenticity. When you are distracted with your own stuff, it gets in your head. When you’re in your head, you’re not present. When you’re not present, you’re not connecting. That authenticity is huge. Vulnerability, how vulnerable are you? Being vulnerable is something that a lot of people have trouble understanding, both men and women. What I’ll say about vulnerability is that it is probably the most important component in connecting with somebody. People will buy. People will trust. People will like you when you are vulnerable. Why? Because they’ll feel like, “You’re another human being. You’re not selling me.”

I feel you because I’ve been there. An example, I was teaching a woman how to use her networking abilities. She also had a lot of different things she was doing for her business to also create a connection for her dating life. It was twofold because she wasn’t connecting with anybody when she was going to these networking events. I said, “What’s coming up for you?” She’s like, “When I go there, it seems like everybody knows everybody.” I’m super shy. I feel like I can’t say anything.

I said, “When you’re feeling that way, what comes up for you?” She’s like, “I feel alone. I feel vulnerable. It’s almost like I’m in junior high again.” I said, “What if you said that? What if you went to the networking event next time and you went up to a group of women and connected in that way?” She’s like, “That would be weird.” I said, “Why is that weird?” That’s human. I said, “You hired me to help you so let me help you. You’re going to do this.” I’m all about action. I give people homework assignments. That’s what I did. She went to the next event. She did it. She saw a group of women. She said in a cute way, she’s like, “I’m so and so. I’ve been coming to these events and I have to say, I’m always a little scared.” She used the word scared, which was great. It was an emotion. “When I come to these things because I feel like everyone knows everybody. It’s almost like being in junior high again.”

These women immediately laughed. They took her under her wing and like, “I have been there. When I first came to these events, I felt that way too.” They joined her in that and that is what vulnerability can do. It’s beautiful when you’re able to do it. Setting boundaries, this is again a whole other webinar. Are you able to say no? Are you able to say yes? Are you closing a sale because you want the sale? Are you not recognizing your value in that? This was a journey that I had to take for sure. I was used to getting a paycheck as a therapist, a small paycheck. If you knew what I was making back then, it was not about the money. It was about helping people. When I started charging people to help people, I couldn’t believe it.

I was like, “I’m supposed to charge money for helping people.” I didn’t recognize that as a value. That was my problem. I would take anybody who would work with me for any amount of money. I wasn’t setting my own boundaries. I didn’t see my self-worth. The minute I started seeing my self-worth, setting boundaries, only attracting customers I wanted to work with is when my business started picking up. Setting boundaries is super important in everything. When you learn to express yourself, you’re going to increase your likeability factor. You’re going to have stronger connections. You’ll be more authentic in your relationships. You’re going to attract that trust so that people will want to do business with you. They’ll want to date you. They’ll feel less resentment and anger built up. You will get your needs met. You’ll close more deals and with customers that you want to work with.

Let’s do the final one and this is super fun. The last pillar ingredient is your social confidence. When people think about networking and connecting, most people think about this. They don’t think about the other two. I want to dive into this. This is building out your social IQ. Your social IQ is your social confidence. There’s a lot of different things. There’s a lot of words here. I’m going to try to simplify it for you. You could be maybe socially confident in certain areas of your life. Maybe there are other areas you’re not socially confident in. I’ll give you an example.

For instance, with some of my dating coaching clients, they’re like, “Kim, I don’t understand. I can walk into a business meeting and own the room. I can go into networking events and I can have people in the palm of my hands. When I’m on stage, I can have everybody listening to me. When it comes to me being on a date and socializing, I’m at a loss for words.” How many of you on here have something like that happening where maybe it’s the opposite? Maybe you’re fine on your personal social confidence, but then in your professional ones, you’re like, “I don’t know how to do this.”

The reason why that is and it makes sense, especially with the clients that I’m working with, who have high confidence in their professional life is because they have an identity. They have a script. They know their role in business. They can walk into a room and say, “I am confident Agnes because I am here to be your accountant.” You know your stuff when it comes to accounting. That’s why you’re more confident going into that room. When it comes to your personal social confidence, you’re left to being you and what do you say when it’s you and not your business?

Whether you’re in a networking event or on a date, I always tell people don’t talk about business. I know this sounds weird. Going back to Scott and me, as an example, we did not talk about business at first. We talked about something that connected us. This is something fun that you all should try next time you go to an event or even on a Zoom meeting. Just talk about my life. I have a couple of hacks that I’ll share with you on how you can do that. Think about your assertiveness, your inherent worth, your bold action, your comfort in your body, your conversation skills, which I’m going to zone in on. The vulnerability also has to do with your social confidence.

 

On a scale of 1 to 10, where are you with your social confidence, 10 being the best? As you’re thinking about this, this is great. It helps me to see, compare these three areas of your confidence. The thing is that you’re going to try to create more confidence in the areas that are lower and draw upon your strengths in the higher. You’re going to lead with your strengths to practice the lower one. If you’re high in the style and you know you got that going on, then you walk into a room as you mean it. You walk into a Zoom meeting as you own it with your style, then practice may be the inner and like practicing no, or practicing a feeling word, practice telling a story.

I want to go over some little hacks here. Conversation skills are one of the easiest things to practice and something that I teach all my clients, whether they’re business or love clients. If you think about the conversation, there are three phases in conversation. You have initiation. That’s like when you first approach somebody, you’re first getting to know them. You’re first hopping on a call. It’s the chitchat in the beginning. You have the middle section, which is how long can you sustain that conversation? How long can you engage with them?

The third is, are you making a meaningful connection? You know that you make a meaningful connection is if there’s follow up, “We should do this again sometime. Let me think about it. I’d love to work with you. When can we hop on a call again?” If you’re dating, you’ll know if there’s a follow-up. Sometimes you don’t. If you don’t know how to ask for a follow-up, hire me. This is the thing that a lot of times, if you can check in with yourself, usually there’s one area that you might feel stronger in than the other. For those of you participating, which phase is the most difficult for you? Initiation, sustainment or meaningful connection.

It’s different for everybody. This is where you can hone in on some of the challenges that you have and how to get over them. When you are thinking about a conversation and thinking about those three areas, what happens? What’s the hardest thing about progressing in a conversation for you? Are you getting in your head? Are you not knowing what to say? Do you feel like people aren’t listening to you? What’s going on with you guys? I’m going to share with you some that are common from a lot of people.

A lot of people that we talk with are nervous about making mistakes in a lot of cases, especially on the investor side of things. As Tony mentioned early on about not having experience in trying to raise capital, lack of closed deals, but they’re knowledgeable. They haven’t had to pull the trigger yet. They’re afraid of raising capital. That’s always one of the biggest things that we see from people. Chris says, “Making a mistake on the investing side.”

That goes back to confidence. See everything is tied to these three things that we’re talking about. If you don’t have a lot of experience around closing, like high ticket deals and investors, it’s going to be more nerve-wracking. When you’re more nervous, guess what you get in your head? How do you get better at it? Exposure, it’s practice. Here’s the thing that’s great about learning some of this stuff. Even if you don’t have a lot of experience, you’re nervous about knowing your facts, maybe you don’t have it all dialed in yet or you haven’t sold to investors that are at that level. You can act as if until you become and play up your strengths.

What I mean by that is that before I got into doing what I do, I used to charge low. I was scared to charge in the thousands after that. I went back to my mindset of being the social worker and not charging a lot. What I did is that I connected with people in ways that I knew best. What did I know? I knew how to connect with people because I have people skills. I worked with my people skills. I maybe didn’t know how to ask for that money, but I knew that if I could get somebody to maybe connect with me, trust me, like me, that maybe they would consider it. That had to do with my own confidence. I started where I knew my skills soared.

I built my whole business. Scott, you’ll appreciate this. You know that I’m still learning all the technology stuff. Scott is always helping me with this stuff is that I learned everything based on people that I know. I built my business all on networking. I did not take marketing classes early on. I didn’t take technology. I didn’t even know how to invest or any of that stuff. I knew people. That’s where I started. I feel like some of that is what you guys can do too. Here are some excuses and fears that I often hear that’s embedded in all of the stuff that you were saying, “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to keep the conversation going. I don’t want to overstep my boundaries.”

It’s a waste of time to do the small talk like, “Shouldn’t we get to business?” It’s not polite. It’s not appropriate to carry on personal conversations in business, “I’m scared I’ll embarrass myself or I’ll say the wrong thing or I’ll make a mistake as you guys pointed out.” It’s easier to stick with the facts in business, “I’m in my head. I get a little bit socially anxious.” These are all things that will stop you in your tracks from progressing in a connection. In that, there are some common challenges that I see when people are trying to connect and close the deal or create that conversation. I see a lot of times people being boring. They’ll go right to the facts and snooze. They’ll go, “Here’s my graph.” They won’t even say hi. They’re like, “Here’s my data. Here’s my graphics. What do you think?”

You didn’t even work on building rapport or connection. You went straight to the facts. You might ask too many questions and you don’t share enough that is relatable to that person. You might stay on things that are too topical rather than personal. That vulnerability piece that I shared before, that is what makes us human, that authenticity. Sharing personal things about you will make the buyer feel more at ease and buy from you. Even if you’re not as smart or have all the facts together or even if you make a mistake.

If they like you, they will invest in you. I know this to be true. I bought a car. I went to two car dealers. Both of the salespeople knew their stuff inside and out. The reason why I bought from one of them and not the other because the prices were the same, it was comparing apples to apples is because I liked the other guy. Why? He made me feel at ease. We had a chitchat. We were talking about life. He was talking about his dating life. We were connecting on food. He was knowledgeable. Because he had the likability factor, I trusted him more. I went with him, like my gut said, “I want him.”

The other guy went through the list of what all the car could do and why I should buy it, but I knew nothing about him. I felt nothing towards him. I didn’t connect with him. For me, it was a no-brainer. This is what happens with buyer’s minds. It’s the same with dates. This all relates to the same thing. A lot of times people, when they talk, they’re not in emotion, they’re talking more about facts. Any time I work with clients, everybody learns this formula with me. I always warn people when they work with me. I like to do improv with them. I love helping people out of their heads. It’s about having fun and being playful. That is also what connects people to people.

There’s this social engagement formula that I teach everybody that you learn how to get out of your head and more playful and connected in your conversations. The first phase is the initiation. That is when you walk into a place or you walk into a meeting. You’re observing who’s in front of you and what’s around you so that you have information on what you’re going to relate to. You start getting curious and you ask questions about it. The biggest mistake that people make is they have a list of canned questions that they ask people and believe me on dates, they do this too.

People ask me all the time, “Kim, what are some openers I can say to people?” I say, “I’m not going to give them to you. You’ll come across as cheesy, disconnected and not congruent.” I’d rather teach people this thing where it’s more authentic. If you come from a place of authenticity where you notice somebody’s watch and say on Zoom or in an in-person networking event and you say, “That’s a cool watch. Where’d you get that?” You’re starting from a place of what’s on the person. That’s already more of a connection than, “Let me tell you about the five tips of sales.”

Second is getting personal. It is appropriate. People think it’s not, but this is a way of building rapport. Get off the facts and ask a personal question. What I like to think of it is as more of like a journey question. If you like somebody’s watch, don’t ask them too much about the watch and stay on the watch because that conversation is going to die. Ask him about him, “What do you like about wearing watches?” Maybe he talks about his collection of watches and how it gets him more women in his life, or I don’t know, whatever it is, connect with them and something that’s more personal in relation to them, not the watch.

That’s a crucial jump in a conversation when people get off the facts. Think about it when you’ve had conversations before, have you ever noticed that first phase, if you’re talking too much about a fact how it dies quickly? There’s nowhere to go with it. It tells you nothing about what is connecting you as people. Another hack is asking open-ended questions like who, what, where, how. Don’t ask questions that require a yes or no, “Do you like bananas? No.” Where are they going to go with that? What do you think about bananas? It’s a different question because that allows them to expand upon their answer. You’re going to get more conversation going. You want to avoid close-ended questions.

After you ask a personal question, you’re going to relate to them and share something about you. This is something that most people don’t do, whether it’s on dates or in business meetings. They’re not connecting and sharing anything about themselves. If somebody likes the watches and they say, “I have a collection of watches.” Even if you don’t like watches, you could say, “That’s funny that you say that because I always notice watches on other people. I dated a guy once who had a whole collection of watches,” whatever it is that you can relate to. It doesn’t have to be that you like watches, but something that contributes to that conversation that they get to know a little bit more about you. Shared perception of ideas, feelings connects a person.

Finally, this is the fourth phase. That’s powerful. When you’re on a date, this will make or break whether or not somebody feels chemistry with you is using feeling words. When you are talking to somebody, are you staying in a descriptive mode or do you institute some feeling words? If you’re with an investor and you like what somebody is saying to you, do you sit there and listen and then go over facts with him? Do you comment on how you feel? “I love that you said that. In fact, it reminds me of a story of another woman that invested with me. I was excited how much success she got into when she did it when she pulled the plug.”

 

The word excited and love elicits a passion and connection with the person that you’re talking to. It’s super powerful and sales and on dates. Overall, when you are doing a lot of active listening, you’re establishing rapport, you’re asking questions, you’re paying attention to what is said. You’re getting personal. You’re telling stories. You’re sharing things. All of these will add up to a successful conversation that will lead to that meaningful connection.

The final thing that I want to say about the communication piece is to find out what your customer and/or date how they want to be followed up with and think about other variables. There are some people who want to email follow-ups. Some people want texting. Some people prefer a phone call. I can’t tell you how many connections die because people didn’t figure out how they wanted to be followed up with and how they want to be communicated with. These days picking up the phone isn’t common. In fact, it’s almost an intrusion of people’s privacy, which is strange how social media and technology have done that.

If that person says, “I’m a big texter. I’d love for you to text me.” That’s awesome. Ask them, “How do you prefer me to follow-up with you?” It’s huge. It can also clarify a miscommunication. There are also generational and geographic geographical differences in the way that people communicate, be savvy to that. I work with clients all around the world. There are different ways that people communicate because there might be some language barriers, maybe there are things that are polite versus not polite. I coached somebody in Shanghai and it wasn’t polite to make eye contact with them.

Here I am teaching her in the United States how to make eye contact to attract people. Over there, it wasn’t polite. Understand some of those differences when you’re communicating. Also, generations, the Millennials like to be hit up on Instagram and DM me and all of that lingo when they want to be followed up with. If you’re talking to older people, they’d maybe prefer a phone call or an email. In conclusion, I hope now you realize you won’t suck at dating when you work on your charisma, your confidence and your conversation skills. When you do that, you will create that likeability factor. When people like you, they trust you and they will do business with you. I hope that was helpful.

You wanted me to know something about a first impression thing?

I have a little gift for all of you. I wanted to find a way that I could help you. If you want to know what your first impression is conveying from all these three pillars, from your style to your emotional and your social. I created a little assessment that you can upload a picture and fill out some of these areas. I will give you feedback. It also asked you if you want to do a follow-up call with me. I’d love to hop on a call with you and give you a free session for anybody who wants a little more help in this area. I will leave it up to you, Scott.

Tell me about the Virtual Makeover.

The Virtual Makeover is super fun. I can work with people all over the world. I do it on Zoom. It’s a one-hour session. I love this new software that I have and only image consultants are able to get it. It creates a virtual closet for you. What happens is that you upload pictures of your current outfits. I assess your outfits. I assess your style, your branding or whatever it is that you’re working on. I go over your body type and what clothes work for you and what clothes to stay away from. I share my screen. We go over the outfits and why things are working, why things don’t, and then we do virtual shopping together.

I’m able to pin certain outfits and clothes that I would recommend for you and build out some outfits that I think would work. You can purchase those items right there in your virtual closet. You get that virtual closet for your whole life. You can even organize future stuff in there. I create little look books for you on different things that I think you should wear for different occasions. It’s super fun. It’s $297, so it’s budget-friendly.

We’ve got another question here, “It looks like you’re a fan of bright, solid colors. Would you recommend solid colors or patterns? Does it vary on your energy, your confidence levels?”

I didn’t have time to go over now. I have a whole section that I go over with colors and patterns and stuff like that. People know me as the pattern Nazi. The reason why I say that is that I’m against patterns and there are reasons for it. One is that when you’re doing webinars, if you’re doing anything with photoshoots whether it’s online dating or for your website, patterns tend to widen you in the camera. They’re also super distracting. First of all, demand more attention if you’re on a webinar. You want to look at a solid color. If you’re trying to look slim, solid colors are going to work for you.

Within the color scheme, it’s different for everybody. Even in that virtual session, I will teach you what colors work for you, what colors do not because we’re also different in our tonality. It makes a huge difference in the way that you read. There are certain colors that also have to do with attraction and if people will buy from you. Scott knows that usually when I’m doing these events that I’m wearing a red dress. That’s my signature style because of my red dress story. It relates to my brand as well. Red is powerful. Red will help you sell and also attracts the opposite sex. I always tell people to wear red when they’re in an online photo.

Blue is also like Scott and I are wearing blue. I’m not surprised that we’re wearing the same color. There’s usually synergy with people too. Blue has to do with authority. I will wear either red or blue if I’m doing some webinar and then I want to command more attention and trust. It’s fun to look at those things. Also, taking a look at your brand. You want to make sure that your brand colors are also all going together for you.

One of the biggest things I can tell you, you’ve said something early on to fake it until you make it. When you dress up, when you’re in front of an audience, it adds confidence. Somebody says, “If you feel sexy, that sexy incompetence comes out of you. When I wear a matching bra and panties, I always feel sexy.” We’re stuck. I’m on Zoom after Zoom call, you’re like, “Let me throw on a black t-shirt and gym shorts or relax a little bit or pajama bottoms.” Take the time especially if it’s an important call to put a little bit in your image, it will come through in exponential ways.

There’s a phrase that I always say is that when you love you, people will too. Many times, we’re focused on other people whether it’s the client we’re trying to attract or the opposite sex. The real thing is that when you love yourself, you’re feeling comfortable in your clothes and your body and your emotions, your self-worth, your flirt skills, your interaction skills, and your conversation, that’s when people will love you. That’s when people connect with you. That’s why it’s important to look at your confidence in these three areas and see where you can challenge yourself and do things that are a little bit different for you to put yourself out there more, to increase your positive exposure around stuff so that you do feel good in your skin.

At the end of the day, if somebody doesn’t do business with you, you will then say, “They’re not my people,” instead of taking it in and taking it personal and in rejection mode. That is the biggest indicator. If you’re taking things as rejection versus, “They’re not my match,” it is an indicator of something’s going on with a little bit of the confidence issue. When you get super confident in all of these areas, you’re not going to care because you’ll have more of that abundance mindset, knowing that you will attract the right people in your life no matter what.

Kimmy, as always thank you so much. It’s such great stuff for all of our readers out there in Note Nation. I know we all get comfortable getting a ride, but if you’re looking to up your investments, up your deals and build some confidence, not only on yourself, but on the investors you’re dealing with, or even also the bankers, as they’re looking at what you are online. I’ve known bankers that will judge you, “You don’t look like you can close a $1 million property or $1 million deal.” When you dress the part, it adds a lot of variables, not only to yourself but also those that are looking on. Kimmy, thanks for coming on here. It’s such great content, as always. I look forward to seeing you in person sometime soon.

Thank you for having me on. The opportunity to talk to your audience has been great.

Guys and gals out there, take advantage. Use Bit.ly/KimmysFirstImpression, we made it short and simple. Download the great report. I already downloaded the thirteen-page man style fashion. You’ll also love Kimmy’s First Impression there as well for you. Go out, take some action and we’ll see you all at the top.

 

Important Links

• WeCloseNotes.tv
• Kimmy Seltzer
• Charisma Quotient
• Note Closers Show – previous episode with Kimmy Seltzer
• John Gray – Charisma Quotient episode
• Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
• The Winning Image
• https://Bit.ly/KimmyStyleGuide
• https://Bit.ly/KimmysFirstImpression
• https://Bit.ly/KimVM

 

About Kimmy Seltzer

Kimmy Seltzer is a Confidence Therapist and Authentic Dating Strategist. With a vat of knowledge and experience as a therapist, certified style coach, dating coach, and matchmaker, she has helped people find lasting love and connection, attract success and build valuable relationships using her unique “confidence makeover” process. Using an outside-in approach, Kimmy implements targeted style, emotional and social intelligence in people’s lives using her signature formula, “The Charisma Quotient,” working on body language, first impressions, image and messaging and how it impacts attraction. This Los Angeles-based expert travels the country helping people discover confidence, charisma and connection as a speaker at National Matchmaking Conferences, eHarmony, Neutrogena, The Guild at Universal, UCLA and iDate. Kimmy is also a regular contributor to the Huffington Post with appearances in Cosmopolitan, Oprah Magazine, Redbook, Reader’s Digest, AskMen, Fox News Magazine, Yahoo and the Washington Examiner, among a myriad of other publications. You can also find Kimmy as the leading love expert on the traveling live dating show The Great Love Debate and the cable reality dating show, The Romance. She is the Love Coach for the dating app Datefit. You can also listen to her on her podcast, The Charisma Quotient. And she currently is hosting The Flirt Academy workshops nationwide.

 

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