The right tools are important to get the job done. Words are the tools of your trade in sales. Specifically, the right words in sales are the best tools of the trade. You might not realize the damage you do when you use the wrong words in sales.
Your manager’s most important customers are his sales professionals.
Imagine you work for a manager. Like most managers today, he’s busy with many direct reports. Your manager ignores your schedule and texts or calls emergency meetings with his sales team at all hours with no advance notice. Even worse, he’ll suddenly announce, “Everyone needs to go to the principal’s office now.” That is how he announces the meeting.
Calling your team to a meeting with no notice in such a disrespectful way is wrong on so many levels. One essential selling skill is time management. This manager clearly doesn’t demonstrate time management skills because every meeting is an emergency. And which sales professional needs to be summoned to the principal’s office? It’s juvenile and insulting.
Managers who treat their sales team in this manner need to be told by someone to stop. Either a few team members approach this manager with some advice or they need to approach HR. This manager is currently experiencing lower performance from his team. That’s not surprising with his lack of leadership skills.
Watch how you respond to others.
Some people are charming. They know what to say and do in most every situation. What can you do if you don’t think of yourself as charming? You can learn a simple rule: Respond to emotion with understanding and empathy.
Here’s an example. One salesman was telling the sales team he had a pinched nerve and wasn’t able to work for a few days. One ignorant salesman responded, “All you need to do is hang from a bar.” The first salesman wasn’t looking for a solution. The proper response would have been, “So sorry you had to experience that. It must have been painful.” It is presumptuous to think you have a solution to someone else’s problem when they didn’t even ask for a solution. You demonstrate you heard what they said with understanding that they were in pain. You heard what they said by acknowledging what they were feeling. You show empathy by saying you are sorry for their pain.
It’s a pretty simple rule. Acknowledge the emotion when someone expresses an emotion. Don’t offer solutions. Demonstrating empathy is what charming people do.
It’s not all about you.
Another poor choice of words is when someone replies to something you say with “I know,” rather than something neutral like, “That’s interesting.” A reply of “I know” minimizes what the speaker said. It’s as if what was said was unnecessary since you already knew it. Replying “that’s interesting” puts no such reduced value on the comment. In fact, it elevates the comment by observing that it is interesting. Some people don’t realize they frequently reply “I know” and are perceived as a know-it-all and are not well liked.
Sales is a people business. Don’t let your words get you in trouble with managers, salespeople or customers. Be sure to use the right words. As Joseph Conrad once said, “He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense.”