We all occasionally fill the air with um’s and ah’s when we don’t know what to say. If we have a constant flow of these filler-words in our conversations with our customers and prospects it can taint how they view us. It can make them question our sales skills as well as our sincerity and intelligence.

“People judge our intelligence primarily by our verbal skills.”

Remember Jim Bakker?
We compromise our credibility and professionalism with our customers when we pepper our speech with a deluge of filler-words. Remember Jim Bakker of PTL? After his trial was over the jury commented that one the most incriminating things he did when testifying was using a mountain of filler-words when asked a question. They felt he was using these non-words to think up a clever and deceitful answer (which apparently he was).

Sales Tips for When We’re Under the Microscope
Our customers want to feel they can trust us and that we know our stuff when it comes to our products and services. When our verbal skills are compromised with um’s and ah’s it can affect our customers in the following ways:

• It makes them conclude we aren’t extremely intelligent. People judge our intelligence primarily by our verbal skills.
• They feel we’re not being open and honest with them. This kind of poor communication can make it look like we’re trying to hide something by buying time to construct some manipulative verbiage.
• They find it either annoying or comical. Neither of these reactions is beneficial to us.

How to Sell Like a Seal
Um’s and ah’s, at least to me, are the sounds that a seal makes. I had to deal with this verbal habit earlier in my career and found help from Toastmasters International. Toastmasters International is a great place to work on stopping this habit and improving your verbal skills in general. Seal talk can damage our customers’ perception of us because we all know that good verbal skills are one of our foundational sales skills.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Related posts:

1. Why a Bullet in the Head Frequently Kills
2. 3 Rules For Improving Communication With Customers
3. What Made Zig Ziglar and Dale Carnegie Sales Success Stories

Tags: language, speaking

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