Larry Chiang’s SuperModel idea starts with your own body before it ever gets to reading someone else’s. Dress deliberately, keep a pen in hand, hold the listening position, and leave the phone in your pocket, that is the baseline he sets before a meeting even starts. Once your own signals are under control, the other person’s signals get easier to actually see instead of getting lost in your own fidgeting.
A prospect leaning forward and picking up a pen of their own is a small tell that they are already negotiating in their head. Tone shifts matter more than word choice a lot of the time, a question that gets quieter and slower is often more serious than one asked fast. Larry treats note-taking as a two-way signal, when he writes something down, the other side tends to start writing too, and that mirroring is worth watching for.
PQRST is not about reading the room, it is Preview, Question, Read, Summarize, Test on the material itself, but doing that homework frees up attention to actually watch the person across the table. Someone who has stopped asking questions has usually stopped evaluating and started deciding, which is a buying signal in itself.
A prospect who repeats your own words back to you, in their own tone, is closer to yes than one who stays quiet and nods. Larry says the biggest tell is when someone starts talking about after, delivery timing, who signs, how the invoice gets cut, before the deal is actually closed.
Missing that shift is the most common reason a closer keeps pitching past the point where the prospect already agreed. Read the room the way you read the material, with a checklist, not a guess.
Details: Watch Larry read a room
#BuyingSignals #SuperModel #Web12