It’s time to wrap up our look at communication in sales. Today we will be taking a look at the last two components that make up effective communication. After taking a look at these, we will wrap up the entire series by looking at some of the common themes.
Tone, Annunciation and Rate of Speech: Use your tone of voice, annunciation, and rate of speech to make important points during your interaction with every customer. Your rate of speech should match or be close to the person you are working with. If you are speaking with someone who speaks slowly, then you need to slow down your rate of speech to make them feel more at ease. If the customer speaks faster, then you should increase your rate of speech. However, it is vital that you do not get out of your comfort zone when speaking with a customer. If it is overly slow or overly fast, then you are going to come across as fake and we definitely do not want that.
You can also make major points by increasing or decreasing your tone of speech. It has to do with where you place the emphasis on a given word or a phrase. If you say, “That ring is really nice,” then the customer is going to infer that the ring they are looking at is an excellent choice. Don’t underestimate the strategy of using your tone of voice to make important points, it can be a valuable tool.
Sincerity: We wrap up our look at communication with a look at sincerity and there’s an old saying. “You can’t fake sincerity, just as you can’t hide sincerity.” If you carry a smile on your face and in your heart, then your customers will see that and feel that. You cannot fake sincerity, if you do not genuinely care about your customers then they will find someone who does. Allow yourself to care about your customers and you will see you Closing Ratio Average increase.
In all of the components of communication that we have discussed, sincerity is the one the binds them all together. You can make eye contact and make it simple but if you are not doing it with sincerity, then nothing else matters. Bottom line is this, practice all of the communication components and incorporate them into your presentations but make sure, more than anything else, that you are sincere.
To review the previous installments of this series, visit Part I, Part II and Part III.
