Heather T. Roy & Learka Bosnak
Ms. Bosnak: Heather and I have been working together for 15 years and we are very comfortable doing showings together. Then Covid shut everything down. We did a showing and I came back completely frustrated, because we were wearing masks. I felt muzzled. I was constantly running around saying, “I’m smiling under here!” This business is all about rapport, comfort level.
Ms. Roy: We’re like, “We need new skills. We need people to know what we’re thinking, and we also need to know what they’re thinking.” It was almost like we needed a body language expert. I am single and I had met with a couple of matchmakers in L.A. One had her clients meet with a body language expert—Mark Edgar Stephens.
Ms. Bosnak: Heather’s still single, but we love this guy.
Ms. Roy: So we called Mark and told him what we were after, and we had a two-hour Zoom meeting with him and our operations manager, Matthew Ingraham.
Ms. Bosnak: Matthew had gotten us “Heather and Learka” masks—very classy—black with white letting along the cheekbone.
Ms. Roy: Mark said, “Get your masks out, let’s do this.” He had planned exercises for us. He put a mask on and he was like, “OK, I’m just seeing this house. How do I feel?” And he’d make us tell him what we thought he felt. All three of us would be shouting, “Oh my God, you don’t like it!” He explained how much is communicated through eye movement, like crinkles and stuff like that.
Ms. Bosnak: One of his other big tips was to make sure your whole body is working. Face the person and make sure your feet are in the right place. Otherwise you are signaling that you are not listening. Now it’s