One thing that can help us or kill us as salespeople (and everyone is a salesperson whether you want to admit it or not) is words. The words that we select when we are presenting ourselves or our product can make or break us. Now it's fairly easy when we are talking to friends and family to not be too concerned about the words we us but it is then when we need to be most cautious of all. Because that's when our guard is down. I'm going to discuss, over the next few blogs, negative words that we use that may not even seem negative to us but may have an impact on our production and every day lives.The first word I'm going to discuss is a pet peeve of mine and is most often used in the words of a person who is in the sales industry. That word is PITCH. I'm sure, even if your not in sales, you have heard a salesperson use this word. "Let me give you my pitch." "After she finished her pitch." "We can discuss your questions in more detail after I am finished with my pitch." The problem with this word is, even in the last 3 statements I wrote, it just sounds negative. How do you feel when you hear this word? If someone is giving you their "PITCH" do you feel good about that person or do you feel their trying to pull something over on you.
Let's think about a pitch from the baseball standpoint. When a pitcher throws a pitch is he looking for the batter to hit it or to miss? AH! So when a salesperson gives a pitch are they looking for you to strike out or to hit a home run? I guess that would depend on what YOUR opinion of a home run would be. If a home run is buying their product (which it usually isn't, they are trying to give you the benefits of buying their product, you are trying to figure how to keep the money in you pocket) then they do want you to hit a home run. If, on the other hand, your home run is listening to his PITCH and getting out of there (a strike out in their eyes) than that's not a good thing for the salesperson.
So, what do we do? How do we get rid of this negative word and replace it with something positive. Very easy! Let's take pitch out of our vocabulary (unless it's a tent or you really are playing baseball) and replace it with the nice positive word of PRESENTATION. "Let me give you my presentation." "After she finished her presentation." "We can discuss your questions in more detail after I am finished with my presentation." How do you feel after you read these statements? Is it as negative as it was when the word was ....... WAIT ..... we're taking that out of our vocabulary. Isn't PRESENTATION a much better word? It sounds like your doing your job, not trying to pull something over on someone. It sounds much more professional and, best of all, let's the customer feel at ease. I will always let have time to listen to someones presentation but will always be apprehensive with a salesperson's (dare I say) pitch.
