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Business Experience, business solutions ltd, communication process, david fairweather, Global Knowledge Base, Motivation, professional exchanges, Sales Process
David Fairweather of Experience Business Solutions Ltd looks at how to make your words work for you in your sales campaigns.
One could easily think that in today’s abbreviated, jargon laden text culture that more traditional written communications is a lost art, but despite all those misspelled and poorly punctuated messages exchanged between friends there is still a definite place within professional exchanges for well written and precise prose.
Selling is a Communication Process
This must therefore be especially true for sales professionals, as selling is a communication process in which you educate, and persuade someone to take action, though in essence the word persuade may be better understood as “motivate the service in return.” Certainly a part of that process involves the ability to speak persuasively. We also use written communications such as follow-up emails and formal proposals to confirm agreements, establish mutual plans and maintain presence in between discussions.
It is imperative that the benefits gained during sales calls should not be undermined by weak writing skills, and yet common mistakes like typos or missing punctuation still prevail and are generally on the increase. Other times, the message itself may be confusing or clouded by too much jargon or just too much text which can be a real turn off to time-starved business executives.
There’s not one formula that works for each sale; your choice of words and how to present them will depend on who you are addressing. Here are some writing tips to support your sales efforts:
Tailor your words
Remember the customer. Be sure to use words and concepts familiar to your prospective or current customer. It’s important that as you review your written communications you are capturing the client’s point of view, not the sales’ perspective. This means less “I hope” and “I believe” and more factual information the customer would appreciate. As part of your qualification process you will have received answers to key questions so try to use the customer’s words as much as possible, particularly ones you will have used in your summary questions and agreements, such as “We agreed that……” or “you stated that…..”
Be Concise and Succinct
Try to be concise. This can be difficult for some who believe that more is always better, but in writing, it isn’t. After you create a draft, edit it down to the essentials. Then edit it again to avoid redundancies and eliminate words and phrasings (maybe even entire paragraphs) that don’t contribute to the point you’re making. The clearer your message, the higher probability your customer will remember it. If you have the luxury of additional time it is sometimes best to leave the document overnight and check it again the following day before sending. You may be amazed at how much you may want to edit when doing this.
Make it Attractive
Make it attractive. So many people these days ignore aesthetics in writing and the fact is that people do appreciate copy that is attractive to the eye — that is, shorter paragraphs instead of long, rambling ones. Busy people often scan longer documents, so bullet points are an effective way to break up copy into bite-sized pieces they can more easily digest. Remember you want and need people to read your work so motivate them to do so with maximum effect!
Check and check again!
Don’t trust or rely solely on spell checkers. These types of program to double-check our spelling are useful, but they are far from perfect. For instance, words such as they’re, their and there escape notice since they are correctly spelled no matter how they are misused. And we’ve all read of hilarious and often embarrassing words that a phone’s auto-correct function creates during quick text message exchanges. Don’t let the joke be on you, carefully read what you have written before you hit the send button. As a footnote, the writer Samuel Johnson once said….
“What is written without effort is generally read without pleasure.”