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Is Your Message Getting Through?

Written by: Virden Thornton

Article Overview: Industry terminology and jargon kills sales!

Is Your Message Getting Through?

As a sales coach, I often hear a sales representative make the excuse for a lost sale, that their prospect just did not listen to their presentation. Most psychologists suggest that, “Effective communication occurs when the receiver receives the message the sender intended to send.” From this definition, it is clear that the responsibility for effective communications rests with the sales professional.

Every day in businesses across the country, customer or client contact personnel and prospects, customers or clients have difficulty sending and receiving messages. Although there are many factors that can block or interfere with effective dialogue, one of the most common among sales professionals is the use of jargon or a specific industry’s terminology. We use words that are familiar to us because we regularly hear them from our co-workers and read them in our product literature and industry publications. Unfortunately, many of these words and phrases are not understood by many potential customers or clients even though they may have heard the terms before.

For example, on a recent sales call with a financial service representative who was presenting a mutual funds to a prospective client, the salesperson moved successfully through each of six steps of the selling process up to the point of presenting his investment product. As the salesperson began to talk about the product, out came a mouthful of financial jargon like: market validity, default potential, investment equity, and more! It was apparent that his potential client was not receiving the message, but the salesperson didn’t even realize it. When making a sales presentation, make certain that you leave industry terminology and jargon at the door.

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Re: Those Annoying Telemarketers - When I was making phone calls I received 2 different messages that really stood out... Message 1: "We can't come to the phone right now. If you're a telemarketer please remove this number from your records. All other calls...." I never bothered to hear the rest because I wasn't allowed leaving messages anyway. I had to actually talk to the person. Message 2: "This phone number is protected by Embarq Privacy Services (something like that). Please leave your name, phone number and reason for call, and the party you're trying to reach will determine if the call is important to them." I summarized, but you get the point. Embarq is a local phone company. I don't know if it's available nationwide or not. That's a new one on me, though. I utilize caller ID on my cell. Unless it's a local number, I don't bother to answer. If it's important enough they'll leave a message. I use my cell for online and offline business since it has these capabilities as well as voicemail. Gotta love technology.
Re: The Storm Brace a new invention - Hi Breck, I sent you a Private Message - please check your "new messages link"!
Re: Two hats - startup sales mentor and Message Slinger - 1st of all, thank you for the links, I will review them all and get a pic up ASAP. 2nd, to answer your question, I have always seen working for others as a means to an end result of running my own ventures. With my consultancy at full swing, and Message Slinger in beta, I am realizing the first part of these dreams. There is more to follow, and as it comes, sharing will be a joy.
Re: Watch What you Read - I agree. i believe more video's should be like Jeffery Gitomers video's under his Sales rant. They are typically not more than 3 minutes. His model seems to be; 1. Main Message (or Point) 2. Example 3. Next steps to put it into Action take away the extra "blabber" and you've got viewers that will come back.
Two hats - startup sales mentor and Message Slinger - Hello all, As a consultant, my focus is on helping companies in emerging companies jump start their revenue generation. As the CEO of Message Slinger, I try and aid in developing and offering the world's best online and e-mail marketing system, Please feel free to reach out and contact me about anything and everything, my third venture is helping anyone I can. All the best, Karl


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