4 Common weak phrases that erode telesales success
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Mon, Jun 15, 2009 @ 01:22 AM
I've written before on the critical importance of using strong professional verbiage to position oneself as a peer when calling high and talking to a prospect at the CXO, VP, or Director level. Asking permission ("Is this a good --- or bad --- time to talk?") and beginning the conversation with "How are you today?" are two things I strongly suggest you do not do on a cold call, because by doing so, you're giving the subtle message that you don't really have anything important to say.
Today, I want to discuss some additional weak verbiage that will erode your position as a peer to higher level prospects, namely the use of diminutive phrases that convey the feeling that you are not as important as the people to whom you're speaking. Four of the most common are:
1) "I'm just..." (as in "I'm just calling to see if you've looked at my proposal yet.")
2) "I'm new here." (or "new to the territory")
3) "Are you the decision-maker?"
4) "Would it be all right if I called so-and-so?"
Each one of the above phrases erodes the confidence that the prospect needs to have in you, and you stand to be in danger of losing the business to a competitive rep with more professional communication skills. Not only should you not use these phrases with high level prospects, you shouldn't use them with lower level prospects either. Let's discuss them individually:
1) "Just" gives you no justice. In my example above, it's more like a whine, and is reminiscent of how a child talks to a parent. Remove that word "just"from your telesales vocabulary to fix the problem.
2) Prospects like talking to "the buck stops here" reps that have all the answers, or at least project an image that they do. They don't care whether you're new to the territory, the company, or the planet, but they need to have confidence that you're the right guy or gal. Save "I'm new here" for bar talk, not business talk.
3) Who's going to answer that question with "no, I'm not the decision-maker"? Most of you reading this blog sell or qualify leads for companies selling enterprise solutions, where one individual rarely makes a unilateral buying decision. To get the information you're trying to get, ask "How does the decision process work?", and you'll obtain better information about all the people involved in the decision, and sound more professionally savvy as well.
4) Asking permission to do anything rarely invites a positive response, and when you're told "no", then you feel uncomfortable in going ahead and doing what you're paid to do, which is calling everyone in the decision process to ensure that you've comprehensively qualified the opportunity. You should have the philosophy that you'll call anyone at the prospect company at any time, and feel confident enough that you don't have to ask anyone's permission to do so.
Using professional verbiage is not only important in communications with prospects and customers, it's terrifically important within the sales department too, particularly when you're in close communication with field sales reps. As inside sales professionals, we fight an ongoing battle to prove to our field sales colleagues that we know just as much as they do, are as smart as they are, and can close as much business as they can. Many field sales people feel that if telesales people were really clever, they'd be working in the field instead, a prejudice many of us in the telebusiness industry have spent years in the process of changing. In my telesales training courses, I always find time to discuss the fact that inside sales has to be more efficient, more effective, and more professional than our field counterparts, because we've always got something to prove. And one of the best ways to do it is to use powerful, professional verbiage, and kick those weak phrases out of our vocabularies for good. Add powerful, no-nonsense terminology to your Best Practices playbook, and you'll increase sales and improve team communication at the same time.