Bill Farquharson

Overselling the Point
July 23, 2007

Let me know if I talk too much about this point but I firmly believe (and when I say “firmly believe” I mean it is a point that I think is true a great deal of the time) that sales people oversell, overtalk, and go on and on about the same thing by which I am trying to say that reps talk too much and listen too little and would much rather hear the sound of their own voice while they drone on and on reiterating their point (and when I say, “reiterating their point” what I mean is they say something and then say it again and again while not really saying anything different or adding anything to the original point; not unlike the words within these parentheses) instead of being succinct and using an economy of words, a strategy that keeps the dialogue focused on the client and gives them the impression that they are being heard rather than being exposed to circum locquacious (Latin for “talking around”) babble which perpetuates the image people have of sales reps (something I work hard to overcome by being succinct in my writing), a rather unfortunate stereotype undeserved by the vast majority of sales professionals who, like me, know that the sweetest sound in the English language is the sound of the client speaking and not the rep talking past the sale, blithering on, or basically doing exactly what I have done in the 245 words (count ‘em, I did) to this point.

Ah, at last, a period at the end of the sentence, signifying the end of today’s thought. Whew!

Um…what was my point again?

Posted by Bill Farquharson on July 23, 2007 | Comments (1)