Do You Use Meaningless Words?

Tele-sales consultant Art Sobczak of www.BusinessByPhone.com reminds us that when we are selling, we have just 10 seconds or less to capture a listener's attention, break their preoccupation with what they’re doing, and place them in a positive, receptive frame of mind.

That's why you must never “muddy up your call with wasted words, or meaningless words.”

Here are some of the words and phrases that Sobczak considers overused and essentially meaningless:
* "cost-effective"
* "leading," or "premier," as in, "We're the leading company in this field." According to whom?
* "solution provider" (Who isn't?)
* "I'd like to discuss how we can meet your needs."

Sobczak offers this advice for your next sales call: Use clear terminology to quickly create interest. “Do this by alluding to what you might be able to do for them, and then asking a question.”

Example: “Art, depending on how you're using your existing list of customers, we might have a way to help you get two or three times the amount of repeat business you're doing now. I'd like to ask a few questions to see if it would make sense for us to speak further."

He finishes his article by quoting French essayist Joseph Joubert: "Words, like eyeglasses, blur everything that they do not make more clear."