PRESENTING THE PRODUCT
Do you represent a product line that you love madly? And you can’t figure
out why, when you present or describe your products, the other person’s eyes
glaze over, or they suddenly have to go now? I cataloged hundreds of scripts
and phrases that people told me they were using to describe their products—
nutritionals, personal care, and home cleaning products, Internet and telecom
services, skin care lines, candles—you name it, I got samples. After thousands
of hours of discussion and review of these, I noticed that there were certain
characteristics of the language they used that caused listeners everywhere to
turn off—including the very people who used them, when someone presented
the same words to them.
There’s something about the way a seller talks, and everyone reacts
pretty much the same way. I noticed three characteristics of what I now call
“seller talk.” It’s immediately recognizable to anyone who hears it. When I
ask my students, “Can you tell when a seller starts talking?” they all say
“Yes!” And when I ask if they tend to go toward that person or away from
them, they all cry out, “Away!” But what if you didn’t know you were sound-
ing like a seller?
Here are the three dead giveaways that tip off the listener that the
speaker is a seller. Most of them represent language that is again meant to
impress the listener. Only it has the opposite effect, as my students have
learned over many years of getting all those glazed eyes and “What’s for
lunch?” comments.
- Generalities. General, vague nondescript words that speak to no one
in particular. If you use words that speak to no one in particular,
who will respond? For example, in response to the question that so
many people in our profession dread, “What do you do?,” we hear
responses like:
I’m in the wellness business.
I help people get financial independence.
I do telecommunications.Ask yourself, if you heard any of those, would your ears perk up or
not? Would you lean in closer wondering what they did?- Technobabble. Jargon, technical terms, scientific names, names of
the products, the name of the company, names of diseases, and so
on. Technobabble is any words a 13-year-old would not understand.
For example, say someone asks you the question, “What do you
do?” Say this response out loud. It’s one of many I got in my script
Why Won’t They Listen to Me? 107