Impress Prospects With Your Messages

By Virden J. Thornton

      Sometimes sales professionals feel insecure about presenting various products or services that they represent. To overcome the discomfort that naturally occurs when you feel unsure about certain features or benefits, often you will instinctively upgrade your language, believing that doing so will help you sound more professional and more knowledgeable. Actually, however, this practice can hurt you rather than help you in the sales communication process.

     Most business professionals are surprised to learn that the Wall Street Journal is written so that it can be understood by readers with an eighth-grade education. When you read this highly respected business publication, you find that potentially unfamiliar terms are always explained within an article and repeatedly defined from one issue to another. Also, article sentence structures are simple, not complex. The editors of The Wall Street Journal know that simplicity and clarity are more important in communicating effectively than impressing their readers with an overly sophisticated vocabulary and writing style. Sales professionals can learn a valuable lesson from the editors of the Journal. When you’re communicating with prospects, clients, customers or co-workers—whether verbally or in writing— Keep It Simple!

     If you’re going to err when communicating, you need to do it on the side of simplicity and avoid talking over the heads of your listeners or readers. Even if you find that a prospect is highly educated and knowledgeable about your product line or services , you will always be understood if you keep your words and messages uncomplicated. That means you don’t use multi-syllable words when a one syllable words will do, and you work to rid your vocabulary of industry or company jargon. If you keep your language simple, you’ll improve your chances of being understood by everyone that you encounter both in business and in your personal communications.

VIRDEN THORNTON is the founder and President of The $elling Edge^®, Inc. a firm specializing in sales, customer relations, and management training and development. Clients have included Sears Optical, Eastman Kodak, IBM, Deloitte & Touché, Bank One, Jefferson Pilot, and WalHMart to name a few. Virden is the author of Prospecting: The Key To Sales Success and the best selling Building & Closing the Sale, Fifty-Minute series books and Close That Sale, a video/audio tape series published by Crisp Publications, Inc. Menlo Park, California. He has also authored a Self-Directed Learning series of sales, coaching & team development, telemarketing, and personal productivity training guides. To obtain a substantial discount on two of Virden's new manuals, 101 Sales Myths and Organizing For Sales Success, just click on either of the titles above.

Note: You can contact Virden at virden@TheSellingEdge.com. You can also see an expan- ded biography at http://www.TheSellingEdge.com/bio.htm.

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