Actually, you know, umm, you guys should go to Toastmasters, and what not
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Tue, Jul 05, 2011 @ 10:02 AM
I’ve been coaching quite a few people over the last few weeks on live phone calls as part of my inside sales training courses, and I’m finding that unnecessary words are commonly getting in the way of effectively and efficiently communicating the business message. Some of the most frequently used and abused are “actually,” “you know,” “you guys,” and “what not.” These words have become habits, and occur many times within the same call, sometimes even in the same sentence: “You know, you guys should, umm, actually visit our website, where you guys can actually, you know, umm, find some testimonials, and what not.”
Before each call, I rehearse a bit to correct this, and most of the time, the reps aren’t aware they’re doing it. I advise them to get some help at home, by getting family and friends to poke them every time they use these avoid words. Another suggestion I make is to join up with a local Toastmasters group, where they can join others who share the common goal of making their speaking more effective.
People who attend Toastmasters meetings learn to speak extemporaneously in a supportive environment, and what they learn there can easily be used to make more effective telephone conversations. It doesn’t cost much to join (check out the Toastmasters website), it’s a lot of fun, and it’s proven to be an effective cure-all for speech habits that might otherwise be hard to break. There will be one or more Toastmasters groups in your area, too. I once gave a truly terrible public speech that mortified me. A friend told me about Toastmasters, I attended a few meetings, gave a few speeches in front of an interested and supportive audience there, and got exponentially better after a month. I’m a believer.
So if you’re aware that you’d like to communicate better, get some avoid words out of your vocabulary, and want to have some professional fun, why not join up? You might also want to ask a few of your inside sales colleagues to join you, a great idea for enhanced team communication, too. You’ll quickly get those avoid words out of your vocabulary, and then you can add the Toastmasters experience to your Best Practices Playbook.