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Cliché-Ladened Presentations By Virden J. Thornton
Do you know people who talk in “buzz words” or “catchy clichés”? (Even the term buzz word is a cliché now because it’s another way of saying, “words or expressions that have become popular .”) Buzz words can sometimes aid a presentation, but often they tend to confuse a prospect, customer, client or co-worker. Anytime you make your listener (or reader) work hard mentally to understand your message, you run the risk that the person simply won’t put forth the effort. The more words and phrases you use that aren’t easily understood by your prospects, customers, or clients the more difficult you make the sales communication process. Since selling is simply a form of communication, it only makes sense that you would want to make your presentation as simple and easy-to-understand as possible. While we’re on the subject of language that can affect your presentations, let’s take a look at your written communication as well. For some unknown reason, sales professionals often believe that they need to write in a style that is totally different from the way they actually speak. If you talk like a lawyer, then changing your writing style is a good thing . However, If you talk conversationally, like most people do, then you should develop a written style that is identical to the way you talk. Generally speaking, letters to your prospective customers or clients need to be less formal, pompous , distant and more friendly, down-to-earth, and personal. Consider the following introductory paragraph taken from a letter written by an account executive to a service industry client: “Pursuant to your request for a review of the service charges on your recent invoice, I am pleased to inform you that a discrepancy was found by our accounting department in your payment date which was the cause of the incorrect assessment of late fees against your High Point Branch consulting and training account.” Formal? Yes. Pompous? Yes. Distant? Absolutely! The most common problem in business writing today is that the writer does not think about the purpose of written communication before booting up her word processing program or putting her pen to paper. In this example, if the writer had first asked herself, “what am I trying to accomplish with this letter” she would have said, “to give my client the good news that a mistake had been made and that he was now going to get all his money back.” The next question to ask yourself is, “How can I state my purpose in a straightforward, direct manner?” The answer to that question is accomplished by organizing thoughts in a logical sequence. Using the same example, a logical sequence for the letter above might have been:
Once you’ve organized your thoughts, the next step is to write simple, brief sentences in a friendly, person-to-person (not institution-to-person) tone. This is accomplished by keeping one thought in mind as you write: the person you are writing to is a friend and you want that person to feel friendly toward you and the organization for which you work. The first few words you use to open a letter can make or break your message. Start with a strong, friendly tone and you will set a pattern for the remainder of your message. Now let’s review the rules you’ve just read about for improving your written communications.
If you apply these rules to the letter shown at the beginning of this article, you could improve it dramatically: Dear Roger: Good news, Roger! You were right to question the service charges on the High Point Branch invoice. When we reviewed your records we found that your payment had been sent to our Elm Street branch on November 14 instead of our corporate office on Maple. For some unknown reason your payment appeared in your Baltimore Branch account. I have enclosed a receipt that you requested showing the payment to your High Point account and the removal of the service charges we had placed on that account. I sincerely regret any inconvenience this oversight caused you, Roger. Just to be on the safe side, I’ll stop by the High Point office in the next few days to make certain your accounts payable clerk has the right payment address and that we are all on the same page with the charges that were in question.. Thank you for your understanding. I look forward to seeing you in person soon. Sincerely, Betty Bunker Account Executive
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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 Wal-Mart 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.
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