Neutralizing Your Accent to Improve Your Close Rate and Increase Your Commission Check
Categoriesaccent reduction
September 21, 2018
Looking for ways to increase your win rate?
How many factors are in consideration when you are selling a prospect your product or service? A hundred? More? Tweaking any one of those multitudes of influencers can dramatically change your success. From the time of day, time of the month, the price by a few pennies one way or another, a specific word used during the sales pitch – you name it and it matters. Heck, a strong breeze blows when you are about to close and BAM! Mind changed.
Perfect your Sales Voice
With all that being said, as a sales professional, you most likely are always looking for ways to improve your close rate and increase your commission. From your choice of clothes to a responsible looking briefcase, anything is worth trying.
If you’ve been through sales training, you know how important your oral communication skills can be to close the deal. You have mastered the language your clients prefer. You have mastered hitting their pain point and offering your unique solution. But have considered your voice?
“My voice?”
You may not realize it, but a salesperson’s voice is important. And while certainly, the tone of your voice has a great deal to do with how pleasing you are to listen to and trust, something as simple as your accent could be placing an additional influencer into whether the sale closes or not. Eliminating anything that could possibly sway the prospect in a negative direction should be neutralized.
“What? Give me an example.”
Neutralize a Potential Deal Changer
Think about it. The world is full of subtle subconscious bias. An accent when someone greets you has often included in that first impression made that cannot be undone. A thick Long Island accent might rub a particular person wrong. A Southern accent, British Accent, Spanish or Indian accent can all have the same effect on different people depending on their lives’ experiences.
To combat your accent as a factor in your sales pitch, it is best to simply neutralize your accent as best as possible. Then once you get talking, if you find your prospect is a native from where you are, you could relax and let your accent shine through a little to close the deal. But having the ability to speak neutrally is quite the weapon to have among your selling tools!
Being in the sales industry, you quite likely can read people pretty quickly, use this to your advantage and turn that accent on and off as needed to reach your prospect on a personal level and get that contract signed!
Our accent reduction classes are customized for you to meet your goals. You might think your accent is too thick to neutralize. Probably not. It might just take longer and more practice. Alternatively, you might not have much of an accent at all. We can create a shorter program that will tackle those few words where your accent shows most. Call today (704) 845-1605 to learn more or get started with our online accent review tool.
Too far to come to the office? We offer online accent classes too!