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I’ve been noticing lately how many empty and overused sales words we use and I thought it was time I pointed out some in my sales blog. As sales professionals our most important tool is our words. That sales tip was given to me years ago and it has proven to be very true. I’ve put together a list of sales chatter that gets in the way of our sales skills and annoys customers or at best doesn’t even register with them. Customers appreciate when we use clear, sincere, non-jargon language with them.

1. “This is a win-win for everyone.” [Contrary to a lot of popular sales advice, customers don't really care that much about whether we win; they care that they win. I much prefer something like, "This solution is going to work well for you."]
2. “What would I have to do to get your business?” [This is really rookie sounding. My eyes hurt just reading it. Either the salesperson is not listening and/or not asking the right questions.]
3. “I’m just touching base with you.” [Why can't we be honest about why we're calling? It's a basic of how to sell. "I'm calling to see if that contract has been signed."]
4. “We are the biggest, best, oldest, best trained…” [I've observed that customers don't really appreciate all our verbal magnification about how wonderful our employer is. They want to know what we can do for them. Did you know this is the best sales tips sales blog in North America? See what I mean? Big turn off.]
5. “Please don’t hesitate to call me.” [How dated does that sound? If our prospects or customers need permission to contact us, we need serious sales help. We're going to need more than a few sales tips to fix this one.]
6. “I guarantee that…” [As salespeople we can't personally guarantee anything. This always sounds a little desperate to me.]
7. “Trust me.” [This has exactly the opposite meaning to every person in the known universe. Customers want sales help, not empty confusing statements.]
8. “To be honest…” [Now everyone is confused. Either you're now being honest and you weren't before or you always were and you're just reminding us.]

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Neuro Linguistic Programming (also known as NLP) was created in the 1970’s. The idea behind it was to understand human communication beyond just the words being used, with obvious implications to sales. Over the last 30 years most researchers have come to the conclusion that it is a highly subjective semi-science that should be used with caution, if at all.

NLP was initially used in psychology and counseling. It wasn’t long until sales practitioners of one sort or another started applying NLP theories to sales training. Am I the only one that has noticed that every new type of pop-psychology is ultimately applied to sales? My most displeasurable example of this was the distortion of the data about the importance of body language in communication (The Myth of Body Language in Communication). I still hear sales trainers refer to that and it makes my skin crawl.

The meta-model of NLP says that when one human being communicates with another they go through the following steps: the speaker first has a thought, it’s coded into words, the words are spoken, the hearer receives those words, the hearer decodes those words and then interprets the thoughts. The concept is actually fairly interesting to consider because, after all of those steps, the potential for misinterpretation in human communication can be better understood. Clearly we can see how this could apply to interactions with our customers.

As appealing as the theory sounds, it is generally accepted that NLP has not withstood the test of time (especially in the area of sales training). It has not been adequately supported by legitimate research and smacks of “new age” thinking, which has more of a spiritual or philosophical appeal.

My feeling is that NLP sales training is unproven and if it were advertised on TV you’d find it at 3:00 in the morning on an infomercial.

Stick with the sales basics that are proven over time and represented in Sales Vitamins™. There are no magic pills in sales.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Sales would be so much easier if all customers were the same. But we all know that we are paid to discern and act on the subtle differences between people.

One of these key differences is how people like to communicate. Our customers normally have a preference for one of the following types of communication and we would be smart to know which they prefer:

1. F2F (Face to Face Communicators). These are individuals who like to talk person to person. This is by far the most effective type of communication because it allows for all the subtle, and important, nuances of the interchange to be observed.

F2F requires a bigger time commitment from our customer, but the time investment is worth it to them in order to increase the quality of the communication.

2. EC (Email Communicators). People who prefer to deal indirectly with people usually prefer email. They like it because it allows them to control when they communicate and it provides a permanent record of the transaction.

Email communicators can frequently feel overwhelmed by salespeople whom they perceive as too aggressive. This is a way for them to feel in control of any communication they have with us.

3. PC (Phone Communicators). While many people consider the phone intrusive on their time, it is less time consuming than F2F and still provides a fairly high level of communication quality.

Customers who prefer the phone are trading off some of the quality of F2F communication for a smaller investment of their time. They’re usually busy individuals who want more than an email.

When we use the communication mode that best fits each of our customers, it can be amazing how positively they respond. We are appealing to their unique personality and isn’t that what the sales game is all about?

We have to be sensitive to the communication preference of every person we deal with and leverage this subtle, yet amazingly important and overlooked customer preference.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

The words that you use with customers and prospects are your strongest and most important tool despite what some “experts” say.

Albert Mehrabrian of UCLA wrote a couple of books in the early 1970’s that addressed the issue of body language in communication. The idea that 7% of interpersonal communication is verbal and the other 93% is nonverbal is said to come from the research he did and published in these books. The reality is that people have radically misinterpreted his research and have erroneously applied it. Despite his efforts to correct the misinterpretations there are still many “professional” speakers, consultants and trainers who cite his research to point out that our words only account for 7% of our interpersonal communication. What a bunch of nonsense.

Here’s the common sense test:

1. If words were only 7% of communication then we really would never have to learn a foreign language; we could just watch someone’s body language and understand 93% of what they were saying.
2. If words were only 7% of communication then we would only understand 7% of the content from radio, books, magazines, websites and newspapers.
3. Telephones would only be 7% effective if we couldn’t see the other party’s body language.
4. Airline pilots, taxi drivers, police and fire departments would only be able to understand 7% of the instructions given to them over their mobile radios.

You get the idea. To think that we get only 7% of understanding from the actual words we use is totally ridiculous as is shown above. Do yourself a favor and pay attention to all the words that you use when selling. Your words do in fact communicate the vast majority of your message and your body language only modifies that message.