Mind your Language
One of our outstanding graduates who is demonstrating what language can do to the client!Â
When someone asks, ‘How are you today’? Do you say ‘not bad’ or ‘could be worst’? Even though you are laughing and jolly (I’m expecting you always to be jolly).
Well, language is key when it comes to business growth. From the language you are using when asking questions, aligning your solution and to how you ‘drip feed’ future solutions and relevant Add On’s which will help them.
I was conducting one of our sales training stage 3 programs on Presenting and 3 people from the same company had this as their wrap up line after giving the presentation ‘if you have any issues, give me a call’ ‘if there are any worries, call me’ ‘if you have any queries then shout out’.
And in the same course someone said, ‘this won’t let you down’ and ‘Its low risk’.
Someone else said ‘we have 20-year warrantee, if it breaks in 10 years we will look after you’.
When they were discussing the solution with the client the interaction was honest and with integrity (which is what we teach), they were caring, considerate, on the same ‘side’ as the client. They ‘slipped’ these sentences in at some point. Written here it may be obvious why I’m noting them but at the time it was amongst other sentences and was sincere.
The problem is you are not sure what the client remembers or not.
Let’s go through this handful of examples.
- ‘If you have any issues, give me a call’ (ah, there’s going to be issues)
- ‘If there are any worries, call me’ (could be worries)
- ‘If you have any queries then shout out’ (queries, usually seen as negative)
- ‘This won’t let you down’ (I’m hearing ‘let me down’)
- ‘Its low risk’. (I wasn’t thinking it was a risk, now I am)
- ‘We have 20-year warrantee, if it breaks in 10 years we will look after you’. (it’s going to break)
- Once you have put something in the clients head it’s hard to ‘undo it’.
I.e. if you were happy with something and I say its low risk suddenly you are now thinking of risk. Low Risk is still risk!
Some ideas of how to swap.
| INSTEAD OF | SWAP WITH |
| You and Us | Together or partnership (if it feels right) |
| Won’t break | Just don’t mention it! |
| If you have any issues | Any areas we can be clearer about? |
| Any queries | I’m looking forward to expanding on points that you wish to know more about. |
Charmaine is the director and Head Trainer of Smarter Selling, Australia’s premier sales training company focusing on enhanced performance, behavioural change, being aware of and in charge of your mindset. Empowering sales people so they are set up for success with advanced skills, the right attitude, accountability, confident and driven to get results.
Call us on 02 9188 5253 to see how we can assist your team in their language and sales skills.
