When you’re selling, every word you write on your website, in prospecting emails or in newsletters matters. If you say the wrong thing, you won’t get results. Sounds pretty simple, but there are some phrases I constantly see that are a total turn-off to prospects.
As a small business owner, I get a lot of people trying to sell me stuff. Almost all of them – way more than 50% - say pretty much the exact same thing. It usually goes like this:
- We’d love to….(meet with you, talk with you, show you, etc.)
- I’d be happy to…
- We’re proud…(of ourselves for whatever reason!)
- I look forward to…
- We would like to…
- Leading company
- One-stop shopping
- World-class
- Best in class
- Customer service excellence
If those words are in your sales emails and other communications, stop now and rethink your messaging. I get why people write those things: because they’re true (sellers do feel that way) and it’s hard to come up with something different than that.
If someone is trying to sell me something, of course they’d LOVE to show me stuff or talk to me – that’s obvious. You don’t need to tell the prospect how happy you would be – it’s completely irrelevant.
It's cool if you think you are best-in-class, but what is this? A dog show? 🐩 LOL. Claiming how great you are isn't very convincing.
And that’s great that the seller is proud of themselves: but as the prospect, how does your pride help me? And, pride is not really a positive thing. Check out this definition of pride from Merriam Webster:
- inordinate self-esteem : conceit
- a feeling that you respect yourself and deserve to be respected by other people
- a feeling that you are more important or better than other people
- a feeling of happiness that you get when you or someone you know does something good, difficult, etc.
The last bullet isn’t so bad, but it goes back to the irrelevancy concept. The seller’s happiness is not important to the prospect. It won’t get them to respond.
What Can You Say Instead?
When writing sales or prospecting emails, it’s critical that you step out of your skin and become the prospect in your mind. Put the prospects needs in front of your own.
Below are some resources that will help you improve your sales messaging. They refer mostly to prospecting emails, but the concepts can – and should – be used for website copy as well. After all, the goal of your website is the exact same as a sales email – to get a prospect to respond to you in some way . These resources are from Geoffrey James and Jill Konrath. They’re experts in sales and spot on.
- How to Write a Killer Sales Email
- How to Write a Sales Email
- 10 Ways to Write Better Sales Emails
- How to Write Emails the Get Meetings [Kit]
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