When you’re in sales, you spend some of your time describing your product to customers and potential customers. When sales reps are speaking, it is incredibly importantly that they sound confident. One of the biggest mistakes reps make is putting a rising intonation on the finishing part of a sentence. Without changing any words, they have destroyed the customer’s confidence that might have been built up to this point in the conversation.
A rising intonation is most often found at the end of a question. For example, if I’m talking with a prospect and ask “now how long have you been at XYZ company?” My question will end in a higher octave, which demonstrates curiosity about the answer. In this situation the rising intonation is good because I don’t know the answer, I’m trying to learn and understand from the prospect before I speak about topics where I exude confidence. In these situations, the emotion that a rising intonation conveys is one of interest and if you want someone interested in the product you’re selling, you better demonstrate some interest in theirs.
Where many sales reps struggle is keeping the rising intonation when they start to describe their product or service. They might say “our product is built on an open API,” finishing the sentence on a high octave. When a rep has a rising intonation at the end of a statement, the emotions expressed are doubt, lack of confidence, and insecurity about their product. All of these are counter-productive emotions to convey, if you are trying to sell a product.
When a sales professional is informing their prospect about their product, they should strive for engaging tonality, followed by falling intonations at the end of sentences. This type of declarative statement shows the prospect that the sales rep knows the product, is confident in the product, and has likely sold this product many times before---much better emotions to convey to a buyer from a sales perspective.
Rising intonations are commonplace in young sales teams. In certain places in a conversation they are acceptable, but in others they can be the difference between making a sale or pushing a prospect away. Being cognizant about your intonations will help you communicate better and communicate with confidence to your prospects and that will help your sales.