Do You Use Language During a Sales Negotiation That Works Against You?
Research conducted by Aston University Applied Psychology Department, who observed hundreds of successful and not so successful negotiation conversations, highlighted that certain words and phrases which are commonly used during the negotiation actually push the potential customer away.
These are at two levels:
Positive Framing and Irritators
Positive Framing:-
Think about the difference between the following two statements:
“I don’t want to fail” Vs “I want to succeed”
They are both communicating an outcome, and think for a moment the different pictures the two statements conjure up for you.
How we “frame” our language with Customers can, and does have an impact on our effectiveness. Some examples:
- “That’s not a problem” Versus, “I can do that for you”
- “I don’t want to be rude, but.....” Versus, “My view is........”
- “I don’t want to waste your time....”, Versus, “I am conscious of making best use of time....”
- “I don’t want to X you.....”e.g. frustrate you, annoy you, upset you, waste your time etc. This presupposes we will do X to the person, and it introduces something we are maybe thinking unconsciously and brings it into conscious awareness for the listener.
- And the biggest one of all.....”with all due respect”
Irritators:-
Examples of irritators can include “generous offer”, “fair”, “reasonable”, and other terms that have a high positive value loading attached to them. It was found that these value-words had no positive effective in persuading a customer to buy, and in fact irritated the Customer, because the seller stating they are being “reasonable” implies the Customer is therefore being “unreasonable”.
Other examples include “Value for money”, “One time offer”, “Crazy not to do it” and “Unbeatable offer’. All imply the Customer has no commercial sense - and are irritating.
