Beware Buzzwords with Your Salespeople

Years ago, one of our clients were almost, in their words, “were sued out of existence,” by a larger organization who they had partnered with on a project. The instigator for the potentially devastating lawsuit was misunderstanding of the word “liability.”

For our client “liability” meant “spirit of the law,” while for their partner it meant “letter of the law” so when our client initiated actions that aligned with their interpretation of liability their partner threatened to sue.

“Liability” might not sound like a buzzword on the surface, but a buzzword is any word or phrase that has a meaning not universally understood by all. For example, when one of our salespeople says to a client, “I’ll get CS to get back to you,” does “CS” mean “customer service” or “cucumber sandwich?”

Because we’re still selling to humans who are filtering our salespeople’s comments through their own hopes, fears, dreams and worldview, defaulting to buzzwords damages rapport and lengthens sales cycles.

Our salespeople default to buzzwords because they’re comfortable and, especially in technical sales, they believe their clients share the meaning of those buzzwords; however, buzzwords that one of our salespeople use with their day-to-day contacts may not be understood by the decision makers at their client organization.

Like a skilled diplomat, an indicator of a true professional salesperson is their ability to smoothly adapt their language, references and body language to the individuals with whom they are interacting. Buzzwords are like heuristics they save mental energy while having the potential to create errors when implemented.

Focusing on making each of our salespeople self-sufficient makes it more likely that our funnel will stay consistently full. These three activities support self-sufficiency as it relates to removing buzzwords from our salespeoples’ prospect interactions.

1.      Pre-call planning

2.      Field support (aka “ride alongs”)

3.      Post call debriefing

Another skill to develop in our salespeople is asking, “what does that mean” when a client uses a buzzword or an unfamiliar team. This is challenging for technical salespeople who believe they are supposed to know everything about their clients. Role play is the best way to enhance this skill. The trigger to ask “what does that mean” is when one of our salespeople thinks “I know what they mean by that.”

Comedian George Carlin said, “the quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our language.” Whether our salespeople are selling hard goods or not their clients are buying our salesperson’s ideas about how the product will solve their issues not the product itself. When our salespeoples’ ideas are filled with buzzwords they do them and their clients a disservice.

Until next time… go lead.