Increase Sales: Stop Naming Things

If you want to increase sales, stop naming things. When you name things, you risk losing the sale because the prospect isn’t familiar with the terms you’re using. Confusion results in lost trust, lost interest and, in all likelihood, a lost sale.

What’s the alternative?

Describe, don’t name

Instead of naming, describe the process you’re going to use. Here’s an example to illustrate how it works.

During my fractional CFO days, many prospects readily admitted that they didn’t have good cost information. I told them that we would:

• Lay out each step of the process they were using.
• Identify and eliminate duplications of effort and unnecessary steps.
• Assign costs to each remaining step and develop a cost against which we could measure future results.

Upon hearing this, some prospects would say:

• That’s process mapping.
• That’s activity-based costing.
• That’s Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints.

Whatever they said, that’s what it was from that point forward. Why?

Because the term had meaning to them…meaning that didn’t require me to educate them, meaning that was familiar to them, meaning with which they were comfortable.

The name they assigned didn’t change what I was going to do, but it made them comfortable with the approach I described. That familiarity and comfort enabled me to close the sale more quickly and help the prospect get quick results.

Takeaways

Naming things adds unnecessary and unwanted complexity to the sales process, for both you and your prospects. Stop naming things and describe what you’re going to do, then let them name it. Both they, and you, are going to be happier with the result.

If you enjoyed this insight, please share it with friends and colleagues. They’ll appreciate that you’re thinking of them.

Resources

For a complete overview of Greater Profit/Fewer Sales concepts, check out Dale’s books, Pricing for Profit and Generate Greater Profit With Fewer Sales:

Even More Profitable training programs assure that your organization enjoys the benefits of being a Greater Profit/Fewer Sales organization.