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Education

In sales, words can kill you met with hemming and hawing
and then told the decision wasn’t
price related? You probably hung up,
disappointed, confused and wanting
to know what happened.

The answer could be found in a word
choice or comment made during your
presentation. I was told about a sale
that went bad in exactly this way.
The sales rep was doing a 30-minute
By Jeff Fortney presentation to a merchant’s senior
TouchSuite LLC staff. The merchant processed over
$25 million a year – a major opportu-
ne of the better aspects of social media is the humorous pictures nity. The presentation started tensely,
people share. Recently, one such picture made me laugh out loud. but quickly loosened up with laugh-
It was a billboard that read, “My three favorite things are eating my ter and smiles. Everything was going
O family and not using commas.” I forwarded it to my best friend, very well, with many indicating the
who replied with, “proof that words can kill.” option presented was the preferred
choice.
In thinking about his response, I realized it applied to our profession. Words
can kill. They can kill a sale, kill an existing merchant partnership and kill Then came the Q&A period. Each
long-term revenue. Even worse, they can kill silently, leaving no evidence. answer seemed to go over well. Then
the CEO said, “I think I have a dumb
Have you ever had a sale go so smoothly you left the meeting with firm confi- question.” The rep said the common
dence the merchant would sign, but shortly thereafter you received a call tell- response: there are no dumb ques-
ing you the merchant was going elsewhere? And when you asked why were tions. The CEO asked his question,
and the rep said, jokingly, “Well, may-
be except one.” Everyone laughed, in-
cluding the CEO.

The next day the call came: the deal
was dead. The sales rep’s contact told
her the CEO made the decision, and
it was final. When she asked for more
details, the contact said, confiden-
tially, that the CEO was embarrassed
by the rep’s response to his question.
Even though he laughed, he felt she
had given no respect to his position –
even though he seemed OK with it at
the time. One simple statement meant
to be funny cost the rep a $25 million
merchant signing.

Manage your words
Yes, words kill. But if properly man-
aged, they can lead to success instead
of failure. Management begins before
sales efforts begin. Start by doing a
self-evaluation. Ask yourself the fol-
lowing questions.
• Do I find myself using a par-
ticular word or words often?
(Not business words, but
general words).
• Do I commonly use absolute
words? (for example, never,

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