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While some aspects of your sales process will forever be in a state of flux, like the technology you use and perhaps your target market demographics, there is one aspect in sales that remains unchanged. Successful sales is about relationships. And how you start those relationships and present yourself during the sales process matters a lot.
For most of us, the initial sales call starts on the phone; however, email and social media have made great strides in helping to set that initial appointment. Regardless of the medium, your prospect will start to form an impression of you and your product or service from that first contact. So, make it count.
Research tells us that how you say what you say is actually more important than what you say. In that first call, you want to obtain qualifying information, start to bond, and leave the prospect wanting to spend more time with you. Your sales prospect wants to be engaged; but how do you do that? Here are a few things to keep in mind:
Body posture affects your tone. Sitting straight (or better yet standing) with your solar plexus outward creates more confident vocal tones. If you need to move about use a cordless headset. If you are on a Bluetooth headset, make sure it is high quality.
Facial expressions are also important. A smile can actually be “heard” on the other end of your call. Positive facial expressions facilitate engagement, while gritting your teeth inhibits trust building and connection.
Breathing affects your tone. And the lower you keep your tone on a continuous basis, the more engaging and trusting you present yourself. This means that you need to keep air flowing from your chest. Ladies, this is particularly important for you, as typically, women’s voices are higher pitched and high-pitched tonality can at times be considered abrasive. Perhaps take some time to practice your breathing in front of a mirror; it will make a huge difference in your tonality.
Avoid distractions. Focus, focus, focus. Like anything else, if you are multi-tasking and distracted your tone will not be optimized for engagement and trust.
So often, salespeople hyper focus on calling scripts and other sales process activities and thus forget to pay attention to how they actually sound. Make an appointment with yourself to work on how your vocality. Use your phone to record yourself on a practice call; then listen and work to improve your breathing, pitch and tone. If you occasionally invest time to check in on how you sound and present yourself, you will very likely increase engagement from your prospects and your customers.
By Blair Koch
