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amy mccloskey tobin

Beware of Industry Jargon

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I recently took a new sales manager position in an awesome office technology company. Although I’m a seasoned B2B salesperson, this is an entirely new industry for me. I spent the early years of my career in manufacturing, and the past 10 in social media and marketing. It’s good to be back in the role I am meant for – working with business owners and decision-makers and helping them become more efficient and sharper. I’m comfortable, mostly.

One thing I’m not comfortable with is the industry lingo that flies all around me. And I don’t ever want to become comfortable with it. People who sell products and services often need shorthand terminology to get to the point quickly. That is totally understandable, but salespeople often become too comfortable (and lazy) with their own industry language, to the point that they assume their customers and prospects are just as comfortable. Admittedly, some of them are, but I bet my bottom dollar that many of the people you talk to in your sales role have no idea what many of your industry jargon words mean.

Coming into an industry totally ignorant of the jargon made it very clear to me how much of it is used. For shortcuts internally, it’s great, but be careful not to speak jargon when calling on prospects. They won’t tell you what they don’t know, and you’ll miss out on all sorts of customer cues and entire conversations because you will make a classic sales mistake: assuming you know exactly where your customer is in their buying process.

Slow down. Speak plain English. And leave the jargon out of it.

Photo by Matthew Brodeur on Unsplash

Practice to Not Sound Practiced

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I am the world’s biggest fan of the phone and cold calling. What I know is that, as Anthony Ianarrino often says, the phone is the fastest and least expensive way to a new customer. It has become even more powerful in the last decade or so as gutless “salespeople” turn to digital methods where rejection isn’t as cutting or quick. How much can an ignored email hurt? Not much, but being rejected verbally? That can sting.

What smart, successful salespeople will tell you is that the phone is second only to a face to face meeting. Connecting via voice makes you far more human to your prospect. Intonation and emotion are not transferrable via text.

Why Some People Fail on the Phone

Building rapport and getting a meeting via the phone is an art form, and like all forms of art, practice makes you better. Overcoming nervousness while cold calling happens through repetition. However, practice should not be a mindless activity. The danger in practicing mindlessly is that you may stop being present, and when that happens, you stop being real.

Everyone hates robocalls. To this day I have yet to hear anyone describe a robocall that caused them to take action. A salesperson who sounds stilted and rote is not much better than a machine, and humans do not connect with machines. They may LOVE machines, like the one you’re reading this on, but machines do not create emotional, trust-based relationships with humans. Don’t behave like one on your call.

The way to practice without sounding practiced is to rehearse not only your script but by practicing sounding authentic and connecting with your prospect. Humor can work wonders, and so can a pledge to not waste your prospect’s time. Offer something of value that makes your call worth taking (information that will help their business for instance), and be present, sound human, and don’t treat them like one of a hundred calls you’ll be making today, even if they are.

You Cannot Excel at One Thing While the Rest of Your World is in Disarray

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fire burning disarray

Working as a freelance or consulting Editor, Writer and Content Strategist provides me with the opportunity to see inside of a variety of businesses of various sizes. Some of my clients are larger organizations with hundreds or thousands of employees; some are smaller one or two person startups trying to build something special. One thing has become clear to me no matter what the size of the business: you cannot truly excel at ONE thing while the rest of your world (or business) is in disarray.

Earlier in my career, I was a wholesale sales rep. and I enjoyed a good deal of success. I used work as the outlet for most of my creative energy, and I was absolutely obsessed with it. It was my singular focus, and I thought I was really good at it. Yet, at the time, I wasn’t excelling at many other things in my life. I was in a mediocre, unhappy marriage, and I’d neglected many of my long time friendships to spend more hours working. I was making a lot of money and measured my success that way, but it was not a fulfilling existence.

Fast forward years later and I am a single mother working from home doing what I love. I do not work as many hours as I once did, but I know that in the hours I do work I perform on a much higher level than when I was work obsessed. This isn’t simply because I’m happier, which I am, but it because my world is the opposite of disarray. It is organized and harmonious, and therefore so is my business.

None of this means that I have the perfect life or that I’ve figured out “the secret;” I have merely figured out one secret to business success. Your life and your business must be in order. You cannot excel at one thing – let’s take sales – if the rest of your business life and personal life are in disarray. Or, perhaps what I mean is that you won’t reach your peak performance level. I am 100 percent convinced that if I had enjoyed the kind of organizational harmony that I have now back when I was a full-time sales person, I would have been even more successful. My focus on the important things would have been clearer, and I would have had less to worry about overall.

So how does one become organized and create order and harmony at work? By focusing on what is most important. That may seem like the answer of a simpleton, but most of the businesses and people I see struggling do so because they don’t focus on the few important things, and instead try to do everything well. Figuring out what the most important things are isn’t really difficult – most of us, deep down, know exactly what we should be doing, we just allow ourselves to be distracted from those things. Turn off the distractions. Focus on the few really important things and you will make time to create order.

Photo credit: Smoke from Paper Mill via photopin (license).