Every day language is what Mom and Dad taught us.

It’s nice, polite, and it makes us fade into the social background, like bland wallpaper. Our parents weren’t trying to make us into salespeople.

They just wanted us to avoid being an embarrassment, especially to them.

Had they wanted us to succeed in sales, they would have equipped us with a much more assertive repertoire of phrases and sentences. For instance, if you’re setting an appointment or closing a sale, your parent-given way of doing it would be to say:

“What I’d like to do is stop by to say hello and to discuss this further…” and you’d go on from there, inserting even more wimpy phraseology, which I’ll critique in a future article.

Had your parent been a top-flight salesperson, he would have urged you to say:

“What I’ll be happy to do is stop by to say hello and to discuss this further.”

What’s the difference? Take a second to figure it out for yourself.

That’s right, the first phrase places emphasis upon what you’d “like” to do, as in, what I’d like to do if I had three wishes would be to fly in a spaceship, appear on Jay Leno’s show, and have Bill Gates’ money.

It’s never-never land. It’s hypothetical; it’s a what-if scenario.

The second approach says, “What I’ll do,” here’s what’s going to happen, the game is on; the switch has been thrown. Here I come, ready or not!

It makes a huge difference. At Time-Life, we measured the differential impact of these phrases on closed sales. Use the second one, and you’ll close twice as many sales.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Those fools who contend that scripting sales talks isn’t worth our time, don’t know what they’re talking about.

Pay very close attention to the impact a word or two can have on your closing ratios, and you’ll be handsomely rewarded for it.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman © 2006

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of www.Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service. A frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide, Gary’s programs are offered by UCLA Extension and by numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. Gary is headquartered in Glendale, California. He can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.

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