Words that Sell

More often than not, we fail to realize just how powerful words can be. Words we say can build up or destroy, they can attract or repulse.

As this article suggests, words can also sell. They can encourage people to buy ideas, services, products, and so much more.

But which words are the ones that sell? Glad you asked.

“Because”

Here’s a really weird sales word that doesn’t seem like it should work as well as it does.

There’s actually a study out there that suggests this word followed by almost ANY reason is more compelling than comparable statements made without the use of “because.”

In this study, researchers had people use three different phrases while standing in line to make copies. Their intent was to see what kind of phrasing encouraged a person in front of them to let them skip ahead in line.

[Summary of this study adapted from Psychology Today].

The phrases were:

“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine?”

“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?”

“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?”

What were the results? 

“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine?” 60% success rate.

“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I have to make copies?” 93% success rate.

“Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the xerox machine, because I’m in a rush?” 94% success rate.

Amazingly, a completely nonsensical reason (“I have to make copies”) increased the “conversion” rate by 33%. Why? Because.

“Will”

As a beginning salesperson, I regularly approached customers and told them “our goal is to…”

I thought I was making some kind of powerful statement about our ambitious objectives, but I later realized that customers were interpreting the word “goal” to mean that we were going to make an attempt to deliver on our promises rather than guaranteeing that we would.

 After being called out on this mistake by customers on a couple of occasions, I adapted my sales language and replaced the word “goal” with the word “will.”

I now tell everyone “we will [do this]” instead of “we’ll take a shot!”

“Best”

In some cases, just okay is good enough. Consider the ice cream you’d buy for 100 people at your 7-year-old’s birthday party.

In most other cases, people want to know that the product they’re buying is the best of the best – especially when they’re making a significant investment. Consider now the ice cream that you’d buy for yourself. Would you go to the parlor with 2 1/2 star reviews or the one with 5 star reviews?

Odds are that you’d spend a dollar or two more to go to the place that offers the best of the best.

But even if you have the best product on the market (and even if your customer subconciously knows it) you can help the sales process tremendously by making that claim (so long as it’s true.)

Telling someone that they’re making the “best” choice rather than a “good choice” can go a long way in reassuring someone who’s close to making their decision.

“Yes”

At one of my earliest jobs as a sales associate at a big box home improvement store, I learned this:

Your customer likely knows their own needs better than you do.

At this home improvement store, our customers tended to be extremely handy people or even contractors and other pros. Me? I was a teenaged kid who’d never taken on a major DIY project.

People would come up to me all the time, product in hand, asking about whether or not that product would work for their project. I had no idea, so I would bring them over and have them ask the question to one of my more senior co-workers.

After one such scenario, my co-worker affirmed the customer and said “Yes, that should work!”

I was blown away. Once the customer walked away, I asked her how she’d learned so much about so many different projects.

Her answer was something like, “To be honest, most of our customers already know what they need and are just looking for affirmation from someone else.”

I would never advocate for deceiving people into purchasing the wrong product, but I do think there’s a principle to take away from this. A customer may come to you with their needs and know that you’re the solution. Your job might just be to re-assure them that you can fulfill those needs.

Of course, you should never do this if you can’t actually fulfill the need. If you lead your customer on with a false assumption, you’ll both hate the experience of working together.