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Weasel Words
June 11, 2007

One of my per peeves is how often salespeople use what I call "Weasel Words". Weasel words are words that sales people use in their sales presentations that show no conviction or confidence in their sales abilities. Success in sales is largely dependent upon a salesperson's ability to increase the customer's perception of value in the product or service that they are selling. I believe that everything is too expensive until value has been established. Saying something like: this might work out for you, or she may like this, shows a complete lack of confidence. I ran into a salesperson the other day that said to me "I don't know if you need any golf balls or a golf bag or anything else. I felt like saying "Why don't you ask or just suggest additional items.

Other versions of weasel words would include saying things like "to tell you the truth" or the truth of the matter is ____" or to be completely honest with you". Phrases like this represent a lack of confidence and skill. The customer may be thinking "What do you mean, you have been lying to you for the past 15 minutes." In sales the primary tool that a salesperson has is their mouths and the pretty word pictures that they can paint using exquisite words to describe your spectacular products or services.

Saying to your customer "I know that this is going to be perfect for you" or "She will absoluetly love the compliments that she will get wearing her new ______." "We have a tremendous buy on golf balls and a wide selection of light weight golf bags for your new clubs" might just convince the customer as opposed to the opposite effect of weasel words.

Fine tune the words that you say and I know you find your customer saying "I'll take it" much more often than they say "I need to think about it"

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Posted by Brad Huisken on June 11, 2007 | Comments (0)