One of my favorite opening questions that I use when speaking to groups of salespeople goes something like this: “How many of you, when you leave a customer meeting and evaluate your own performance, would ever do the Tiger Woods fist pump to celebrate your success as you say to yourself, ‘YES, I came across like all other salespeople!’?”
Nervous laughter…VERY nervous laughter!
First, let’s call attention to something I’ve addressed in these pages in the past: Sales is the only profession whose members’ success and happiness depends on not coming across like someone from the profession. Weird, eh?
Of course one of the things that determines how we’re coming across to customers is the words we use. Words matter…a LOT! I think we all believe that.
But what are we willing to do about it? Sometimes it appears not very much.
For example, when I encourage salespeople to avoid certain words, like “needs,” “relationship,” or “partner,” or phrases like, “Who in addition to yourself should I be talking to?” and “Just wanted to follow up…,” I usually encounter pushback.
So with that mild rant, let me offer up two things today:
- A list of words and phrases to try to avoid, but that don’t have a direct replacement (we just have to find different ways of conveying the message the word or phrase is attempting to convey).
- A few “Say this, not that” examples where reasonable alternative language does exist.
You might look at the lists below and say, “Sheesh, what’s left for me to say?” But I really want to discourage that response. Start by trying to incorporate some of the “say this, not that” examples. Then move on to the heavy lifting of finding ways that work for you to replace some of the others.
One hint, and I hope you will take a leap of faith on this one: try to overcome the salesperson’s genetic predisposition to “sounding professional.” Don’t “utilize utilize when you can use use!” See, for example, if you can find a way to incorporate, “I’d like to kind of step back and go into homework mode” into a conversation.
-Jerry Stapleton is the founder of Delafield-based Stapleton Resources LLC (www.stapletonresources.com). He is also the author of the book, “From Vendor to Business Resource.”
