Words, a powerful tool

Words are not just a way of communicating, there are instruments that can help you close a deal, or not. Good words used good times can get you a closing deal, but when you negotiate with someone, a wrong words can change the whole negotiation in a bad way.


That is why I have tried to make up a list of words that you should avoid when you are making a sell:


1. “Yes, but….” – You have to avoid this phrase because it produces a negative connotation in the buyers mind. Let’s say that you are trying to sell him an expensive TV set. The buyer will say that is has the same characteristics with a cheaper model. You CAN`T say “Yes. But it has a different start button” If you say this, than the buyer will understand that you agree with him that is expensive and don`t worth to spend money on it.


2. “We have a team of experts” - When a customer asks you something about the product and you don`t know the answer, don`t say that you have a team of experts that will contact him in a couple of days and explain everything to him. In 90% of the cases the customer doesn`t return to hear the experts explications.
3. “To be honest with you” – Bad expression used by many sales agents. When you talk to a client and in the middle of the dialog say “To be honest with you, I would …..”, that is practically saying that have lied to him until now. Until now you haven’t been honest, but now you are.


4. “I will try” – “I have tried, but it wasn`t possible” - This expression doesn`t bring much confidence to your customers. Have you ever heard a surgeon say “I will try to make the operation”? He inspires a lot of confidence in the eye of the relatives, doesn`t he?


5. “I am sorry” – This is a phrase that that is very used by sellers. Don`t use it. Try a different approach if you have made a mistake, like: “It`s a very unpleasant situation, let’s see what we can do to fix it”.

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A low-cost selling strategy

Telemarketing was a very good strategy to sell products from big and small companies as well. But this was 15 years ago. Even thought there are not as effective as they used to be telemarketing agents can bring you nice profits. The phone bills will be a small amount to pay when you will have high profits.


I will give some advices regarding telemarketing strategies and methods:



1) Don`t try to sell products over 1000 $, they will be practically impossible to sell, try products under 200 $

2) Try to simple products that the costumer could understand the description over the phone, complex products are not likely to be sold

3) Using telemarketing you can study the market and the trend, you can anticipate the trend and come up with new products that will satisfy your customers

4) Telemarketing will not work if it is your only product for your marketing campaign, try combining it with other marketing techniques

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What do you do with a product that is not selling?

You spend a lot of money and time in the research of a new product and when you get it out on the market, it doesn`t sell as much as you waned, what do you do? Well, you have two options:


1. You change something : design, price
2. You get it out of the market – in the world 30 % of new products are taken out of markets within the first year.


I would suggest a combination: get the product out of the market, is much more cheaper and doesn`t involve as much risks, and then when you revise your marketing strategy and position the product better, with small modifications you release the product again. This strategy is called: “turnaround strategy”, it is believed that a brand restyling is cheaper than launching a new product.

The product must have something new, to attract more clients and to satisfy new needs, people won’t buy a product that has old features. But be careful you could launch a much more innovative product that the market is demanding, you could be ahead of your time, and that is not good either.

Every product has a life cycle, from the day he is launch till the day it is no longer produced. Usually engineers and designers begin work on a new product with a couple of years before launching. In the car industry they start working on a new project before the latest model is launched.

So try to stay in front of your competition, but not in front of your customers.

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How to sell

Try not to sell the product, try to sell the experience, the feeling. The item is just a pretext; you sell the experience to your client. If you are a Bentley dealer, you don`t sell a car, you sell the sensation of luxury. Let`s take another example: People who get sophisticated phones, but they have nothing to do with all those features, they just want to seem important and busy. You don` buy a Rolex because it`s a very good watch, you buy one because you want to show the whole world that you are rich.



You should be asking yourself two questions before you sell something:


1) What am I selling?
2) Why would anyone buy my product?


The great psychologist Abraham Maslow made a pyramid of 5 needs that people should be satisfied with.

1. Physiological needs – food , water
2. Security needs – a job, medical insurance
3. Social needs – friend, co-workers
4. Ego needs – respect, responsibility
5. Self accomplished needs – achieving in life

For a sell to take place a certain need from the Maslow pyramid should be satisfied, and before you make you offer it is very important to understand what kind of need motivates the client to buy.

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How to transform client complaints into a gold mine

Statistics have shown that one client out of four is not pleased with the services / product he receives from a company, at one point. The client that is unhappy usually complaints, in average, to another 12 people, that he didn’t like the service / product.


Also statistics has shown that only 5 % of the unhappy clients report to the company what they did not like. The other 95 % believe that if the notify the company about their problem nobody would care. In conclusion they chose to go to another company that would satisfy their problems. That is why you should always listen to the problems that your clients have. To earn a new client you will have to spend 8 times more than you would have spent to keep one client with the company.


You should ask yourself a couple of questions to anticipate your customers demands


1. How many steps should a customer take in order to get what he wants?


2. The front desk employees do whatever they can to resolve the customers needs?


3. Are they willing do go around the company system in order to resolve client problems without creating an obligation from the company?


4. The business procedures are made for the company or for the clients? In order to get answers to these questions you need to discuss with your front desk staff, they are the best people to ask about the customer’s problems.


Also you should try to make your customers complete surveys about your company. With all of that said, I wish you good luck!

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