The words you choose have a massive impact!
In sales, the words you use have a massive impact on the level of your success. In 2010, a project conducted by researchers from Harvard University and Google estimated that there are a total of 1,022,000 individual English words in digitised books. With over a MILLION words to choose from, too many sales people continue to use words that make buyers cringe! Be honest when looking through the ones below to see if you are using any of these.
* I have added a healthy dose of sarcasm to highlight my point.
“How are you?”
Sales call, sales call!!! Do I feel you really care, no! I don’t know you and you don’t know me.
“Have I caught you at a bad time?”
Yes – or No, I was hoping to be interrupted with a sales call
“Can I have / steal a minute of your time?”
Sure, I have nothing better to do and this sounds exciting.
“I know you are busy…”
Then why are you wasting my time
“I, we and my company”
How about making this less about you and more about me. Maybe you and your is better than I and we, just a thought.
“I’m checking in”
To a hotel?You must have the wrong number. Maybe “I’m calling for your feedback on” will work better.
“The meeting is free is and there is no obligation…”
Phew, for a second I was keen to pay you for your sales pitch and I was really hoping that I was obligated to buy.
“What are your needs?”
Why don’t you ask some decent questions to find out and frame them around areas you can potentially assist me with.
“What are your pain points?”
My back and knee, your dumb questions…really is that the best you can do?
“We can save you money / Don’t you want to save money?”
Seriously, that’s the same thing the last 10 sales people have said. How about asking well thought out questions to understand if there are areas that I feel are important for cost reduction / profit enhancement.
“Are you happy with your current supplier?”
Yes, now what do you do? Either you walk out or start with your sales pitch about why you are better….
“What will it take to get your business?”
For me to see if I can actually be better off on my needs, wants and objectives than where I currently am. Is this not your job to establish this? Alternatively thanks for making this discussion about the lowest price.
In today’s competitive sales environment, your ability to have others WANTING to engage with you is a crucial skill. I am strongly against the 70’s and 80’s manipulative sales lines, unfortunately too often these have been replaced with boring and irrelevant ones.
If you want to stand out as a sales superstar and have people wanting to buy from you, put some effort into reframing the typical things that you say in any sales engagement. You will be amazed with the results.
Your in sales,
Mark
mark@salesguru.co.za
PS I have a talk called “Words, phrase and sentences that sell”, have a look: www.markkeating.co.za
