Today we are going to explore how to be more likeable as a tour leader, guide or experience host and break down the habits of likeable individuals.
But first a quick story.
I was shy as a young child.
And not the cute, bashful, ‘oh-isn’t he a dear’ kind of shy, more like the socially crippling, face-burying, ‘such a shame about that Tonner boy… I wonder if he was dropped?’ kind of shy.
And it stuck around for years, creating no shortage of awkward moments in junior high.
I have a memory from grade seven of a pretty brown-haired girl turning around in class and asking me if I preferred girls that shaved their legs or not.
My entire body Han Solo’d.
Mouth open. Eyes-wide. Completely encased in solid carbonite.
I was so mortified by this simple question that not only couldn’t I stammer out an opinion, I couldn’t even stammer out a stammer.
After a few moments of patience, confusion and ultimately irritation, the girl turned back around in her chair, realizing that I was clearly too useless to help with her polling.
This is the type of incident that can give an adolescent boy months of pained reflection.
“Why am I so embarrassed all the time?” “How is everyone else so confident and likeable?”
It was a phase to be sure, and like many other phases, it eventually passed.
(my horn-blowing emo years were amongst the most obnoxious)
But questioning ‘What makes a person likeable?’ has been a regular pass time in my adult life.
This question lies at the centre of the curious Yin and Yang of ‘Not caring what anyone thinks about you’ and ‘desperately needing social acceptance and attention’
And this is even more relevant for tour leaders, guides, experience hosts and anyone who work in the service industry.
Being affable, warm, pleasant and fun, are all central to ensuring your guests and customers are being well taken care of.
But how to be more likeable as tour leader?
Is this really something that’s in our control?
I think it is.
Consider the most likeable people that you have ever met.
Describe them to yourself.
What is it that made you so comfortable around them?
Now take a look at the words you used. I am willing to bet that you largely focused on qualities that under people’s control, things like approachability, humility, positivity, etc.
These qualities, and others like them, describe people who are skilled in emotional intelligence (EQ).
There is even research data from TalentSmart for over a million people that shows people who possess these skills aren’t just highly likeable, they outperform those who don’t by a large margin.
Ninety percent of top performers have high EQs, people with high EQs make $29,000 more annually than people with low EQs, and a single-point increase in your EQ adds $1,300 to your salary.
Dr. Travis Bradberry, the award-winning coauthor of the best selling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, has spent a lot of time thinking about likability, how it relates to emotional intelligence, and how humble folks like you and I can take steps to be more likeable.
You can grab a copy of his book on Amazon here, but I’ve taken the time to distil out what I think are the most important habits for us as tour leaders.
In the above training video, I share 11 habits of likeable people, and offer down-to-earth ideas on boosting your charisma, charm and likability.
We’ve also created a PDF cheat sheet, ’11 Habits of Likeable Tour Leaders’, which you can download, print out, and hang inside your locker at school.
…or elsewhere if you don’t happen to still be in Junior High.
Great to have you here,
Kelsey T
P.S. Know someone who is crushingly unlikeable and want to help them out? Share this video, post and PDF and include the line, “I think you could really use this…”
…
KIDDING.
But seriously, feel free to share in other less passive-aggressive ways. ; )
Finished Watching?
In the comments below, what do you find are other habits of highly likeable people? What advice would you give for being more likeable?
Transcript:
To begin this video, I’m going to be sharing a few of the things my 1 year old daughter does to make her insanely likeable. She gurgles, she giggles, she makes that sound right there, she puts her arms up in the air when she wants to be picked up, what else do you do? It’s just easier back then wasn’t it?
Hi there Kelsey Tonner here from Be a Better Guide. Today we’re going to talk about the habits of exceptionally likable people. And of course for something like this, there’s no hard and fast rules and we can’t be liked by everyone. Just not possible. That being said, if I were to ask what the most likable people were like that you’ve ever encountered.
There’s a good chance that you would use terms and descriptors that are actually within people’s control. Things like approachability, warmth or positivity. All of this goes to show and researchers have shown like Travis Bradberry that this is part of something called emotional intelligence essentially the ability to manage your own emotions and the emotions of others.
So what we’re gonna do in this video is we’ve cobbled together eleven strategies that highly emotionally intelligent people use to be more likeable. Let’s take a look.
1 – Be Genuine.
genuine people gravitate towards tour leaders who are open and authentic. We all know how easy it is to spot somebody who’s trying a little too hard or just comes across as fake. So to combat this, focus on what drives you what makes you passionate, what gets you excited share this with your guests.
It’s an adage as all this time but this will make you so much more likeable than trying to do the things that you think other people want you to do or to be what other people want you to be. Likable people are confident and they’re not afraid to be open and vulnerable.
2 – Ask Thoughtful Questions
The biggest mistake tour leaders make when it comes to listening is they’re often just waiting to speak – they’re not really paying attention at all. so a tip to avoid this habit is to ask lots of questions. Something as simple as a clarifying question shows your guests that you’re truly interested and now you care about what they’re saying. Be surprised how much just showing a little genuine interest in getting curious about your guests will go a long way for your likability.
3 – Don’t Be Judgy
Likeable people are open-minded and willing to hear multiple perspectives. These traits make you more likeable and pleasant in conversation because nobody likes to chat with someone who is overly dogmatic, or unthinking, or maybe even condescending.
To reduce our biases and avoid this temptation to rush to judgment, it often means taking a little but more time to appreciate the perspective of somebody else. That doesn’t mean we need to agree with everyone all the time or believe what other people believe but it doesn’t mean taking your time a little bit more appreciate that we almost never have the full perspective and being generous with other people.
4 – Don’t Seek Attention
People are averse to those who are desperate for people’s attention. You don’t need a big, extroverted personality to be likeable as a tour leader. Being friendly, conscientious, warm is often all you need to win over your guests.
Many great guides are performers and of course, we have the attention of the group a lot of the time but keep this in mind, we’re in the service industry. It’s not about you, it’s not about your ego, it’s 100% about the guests.
The more that we can be guest focused in everything that we do, the more will be appreciated and the more will be liked. but always keep in mind that we are in the service industry. It is not about you or your ego – it’s about your guests. And the more we can be 100% guest focused – the more we are appreciated and liked.
5 – Be consistent
A few things make you more unlikeable as a group leader than being erratic or scattered or all over the map. Guests like to know with whom they’re dealing and what sort of responses they can expect when they’re dealing with you. So to be consistent, you’ll need to be reliable. You’ll need to be fair and of course, be able to manage your own mood swings. Whether you’re up or you’re down, it really shouldn’t be impacting the guests on your tour.
6 – Use Positive Body Language
Become aware of your gestures, expressions, and your tone of voice – and make sure that you are coming across as warm, welcoming, compositive. Positive body language includes examples like I’m crossing your arms, leaning towards the group a little bit, smiling, making eye contact.
All these are things that emotionally intelligent people will do to draw others in. As we’ve often heard, most of communicated is nonverbal so bring some awareness to your body language, your tone of voice and your gestures because they’re communicated a lot more than you might think.
7 – Master Your First Impressions.
Research continues to show that most people decide whether or not they like you within the first seven seconds of meeting you. We’ve got to ask ourselves, “are the first moments when we’re meeting people our strongest”, “are we individually welcoming every single person to our tour”, “are we smiling”, “do we have a firm handshake”, “are the first five minutes of speaking to your group the best five minutes of the entire tour”. If not, change it.
So many tour leaders waste these precious first moments with dry logistical talk or monotone description of what’s gonna happen. Yeah we rid of that. You need to be excited. You need to be enthusiastic but most of all, get the excited for what is about to happen.
Your Guests should feel like they’re gonna go on a journey with you but this isn’t any old tour and that they’re so lucky to be standing where they are. Start your tour like a rockstar taking this stage. First impressions matter.
8 – Learn People’s Names
Your name is an essential part of your identity, and it feels great to hear it when used in conversation. Likable people will regularly use other people’s names in conversations. So, this is a great skill for you to use as a tour leader.
If you want some help remembering guest names or techniques or it’s a skill you want to work on, check out our other video “How to learn People’s Names on tour”
9 – Smile
People naturally (and unconsciously) mirror the body language of the person they’re talking to. If you want your guests to like you and to feel good, then, smile and they will be mirroring that behavior back to you. Smiling is one of the most effective ways to come across as more likeable as long as it’s natural smile and it’s authentic.
10 – Use Physical Contact
When you touch someone during a conversation, oxytocin is released which is a neurotransmitter that associates you with feelings of trust and many other positive emotions. Now, of course you need to touch people in the right way, in the right cultural context and of course, if we do that wrong, it has the opposite effect.
But studies have shown over and over that using physical contact in the right way is a great way to be more likeable and to build stronger social connections with people. This is a skill that you can absolutely work on.
11 – Balance Passion and Fun.
People are drawn towards those who are passionate but sometimes passionate people can be a little bit too focused or aloof or maybe sometimes too serious. The best tour leaders balance that passion and enthusiasm with a generous spirit.
Think of that best teacher or professor that you ever had and there’s a good chance that they were really enthusiastic about the material. There was probably also this sense of camaraderie right? They brought into their world and shared it so if you feel your tour is not delivering it, you’re not passionate about that you’re sharing.
Change it up, create a new tour, create a new script, get rid of those old jokes, those old lines, shake things up a little bit and share more of yourself in your passions with your guests.
If you would like a quick summary of all these points, you can grab our PDFs down below we call the ‘11 Habits of Likeable Tour Leaders’. Just click and it’ll be all yours completely for free.
A big thanks to Travis Bradberry and his book ‘Emotional Intelligence 2.0’ which is a great inspiration for this video.
Before you go, in the comments below, share some of the traits of the most affable people that you’ve ever met in your own life. Why don’t the traits that make these people so darn likable. Let’s have a bit of a conversation down there and share with one another.
If you don’t mind sharing this video with a friend or colleague, it would mean the world to us. Subscribing to our channel or a quick like. All these small gestures mean a lot to us. Thanks so much for being here and I’ll see you next time.
Akela, I told you, if you want to be more likable, you need to use people’s names. It’s pronounced mama, mama.
All right, let’s do lunch.
