In this week’s podcast, Episode 30, we’re going to talk about psycho-phobic words.
Words are powerful. The words we use all have connotations. In sales, it’s the same. There are all these words that we often use as salespeople and they have negative connotations. If you use enough of these, you end up with a situation where someone has got all these red flags being triggered in their brain.
I’m going to share with you some words and the equivalent that you should replace them with.
So, the first one is ‘cost’. Why would I suggest that you don’t use the word cost? No one wants to pay the cost. Everyone wants to keep costs down. If you look at the neuro-association with the word ‘cost’, there are all of these different connotations that people had for it. So instead of saying cost, one of the best things you can say is: ‘valued at’
The next one is ‘price’. There are sorts of different ways that you can present price. One of the best things you can use is the number. So rather than saying ‘$4,599’, one of the best ways you can say that is ‘four, five, nine, nine’. It sounds like a low number. This is all happening on a subconscious level, but people make buying decisions for reasons that would blow your mind. And it can make the difference between someone buying from you or not buying from you.
So another word is ‘cancel’. So rather than saying, “Oh, I just had someone cancel an appointment with me.” One of the best things that you can say there is, “I just had somebody to reschedule.” I’ve been in business now for over 30 years. I’ve never had anyone ‘cancel an appointment’ with me. I’ve had lots of people ‘reschedule’. But you can say the reasons. When you’re talking to someone and you say, “Oh, I’ve had a client cancel.” They’re going to be thinking, “Why did that person cancel?”
So instead of ‘cancel’, ‘reschedule a contract’. So again, ‘contract’ sounds like someone’s being locked in. One of the best things that you can do is refer to that particular document as an ‘agreement’ because they are agreeing with you conceptually; and the paperwork simply confirms that agreement.
Another one is ‘sign’. So rather than getting somebody to sign something, just get them to ‘okay’. If I could get you to ‘okay’ the agreement or if I could just get your ‘okay’, then there it is.
To note: these are making people’s buying experience with you smoother and less clunky.
The next one is ‘sold’. Instead of saying, “Oh yeah, we sold him a house on Smith Street.” It should be like: “Oh yay! We help them to move from their previous address to Smith Street.”
If you’re trying to catch up with someone, better not use the word ‘meeting’ because what’s implied is that there’s some kind of obligation and that they are going to be committed to something or obliged to do something. Rather than saying, “I want to organize a meeting,” say “It’d be great to organize a time to catch up.” It sounds a lot less confronting and less formal.
The next one is ‘following up’. What type of people ‘follow up’? Stereotypical pushy-type salespeople. We would be better to not sound like those people. Instead, say “I’m coming back to you,” or “I thought I’d give you a call.”
Try and get rid of the word ‘proposal’. Why? Because, semantically, you know, the word means it’s not a done deal. It’s something that hasn’t happened yet. It hasn’t been agreed to yet. If you are going to put together a document, you’d be better to call it a ‘fee outline’. You could also call it an ‘action plan’.
The next word you should not use is ‘honestly’. What’s implied is that everything else that you’ve said is dishonest. Replace it with ‘quite frankly’ instead.
The other word to get rid of is the word ‘basically’. I would replace it with ‘essentially’, which lifts everything else that comes after it.
There are certainly some more words that I could add to that; but if you were to start with eliminating those from your sales vocabulary, I think that you will do very well.
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