What if our team and our customers had an indicator dial on their forehead that shared how our words and conversations impacted them? Are we creating conflict? Are we creating sales resistance? Or are we eliminating it?

What if our customers became less concerned about a cheap price and more concerned with uncompromising quality?  

What if our technicians became the ultimate professionals, showing up on time, looking the part, acting the part, smelling the part, speaking the part, and effectively communicating with our team members and customers professionally at all times?

What if our CSRs answered the phones before the second ring, never waived a diagnostic investment, communicated the unique value we bring to the marketplace, input every note perfectly into our software, pulled every permit as agreed, created all job packets on time, and never complained about a technician again?

Too good to be true? Something out of the Twilight Zone? 

Perhaps. Or perhaps not. 

There are six foundations to effective communication, and most of us ignore five of them.

1.    The Ground Rules: Communicating to Persuade, Not to Manipulate.

What constitutes the difference between persuasion and manipulation? The difference can be distilled down into a single word. INTENT.  The foundations of effective communication, persuasion, and sales don’t change, but how we communicate them, and for what cause makes all the difference.

We could deliver a presentation in the same masterful ways, implementing all of the same techniques and strategies. Yet if we intend to trick or deceive, then we have become nothing more than a masterful manipulator.

But if we intend to persuade another party to decide on their best interest, then we are simply a Master of Persuasion. We believe a determining factor is how we intend to behave after we’ve persuaded someone to make a decision. Do we stand behind our product or service? Do we continue to do what we said we would when we said we would do it?

What I share in this article is a belief that the reader will implement what follows with honor, character, and integrity, adhering to their own moral compass. The great news is that most of us are already implementing this First Foundation of Effective Communication.

So we begin on the grounds of The Grandmother Rule. If we wouldn’t recommend something to our very own grandmother, then we believe we shouldn’t recommend it to the person we’re serving.

2.    Becoming a Wordsmith: The Words We Share Matter

We’ve identified well over one hundred words that we recommend Wordsmithing during our conversations with our team and our customers. Words such as Price, Cost, Fee, and Charge are all likely to conjure up negative emotions for our customers. 

Instead of sharing with a customer what our price, cost, fee, or charge for a product or service is, we’d recommend wordsmithing that to the word investment.

Words such as price, cost, fee, and charge are all likely to conjure up negative feelings, emotions, and situations. No one wants to “pay the price,” as this is a term used to describe a punishment. When price is a part of the conversation, we as consumers are conditioned to negotiate, argue, debate, and sometimes outright battle.

In terms of “cost,” this is perceived as something we lose. It’s an expense and doesn’t communicate value. “That’s going to cost you an arm and a leg.”  A fee is typically a word that is most often used to describe things most of us don’t like, such as ATM fees, parking fees, baggage fees, and late fees… and they all have negative connotations.

And can we talk about the word charged for just a second? When we think about being charged, for most of us it conjures up images of being charged with a crime, or charged by a bull, or overcharged by a contractor.  

However, from the time we are small children, most of us are conditioned to “invest our money wisely,” … to “invest our time wisely,”  … to “invest in ourselves,”  … to “invest in our future,” to “invest in real estate,”… and to “invest in the stock market.”

We feel as though any time we invest, we are doing something good for ourselves and our family, and we are behaving responsibly.

Research has shown that negative words can actually increase the activity in our amygdala, also known as the fear center of our brain. The amygdala then releases stress-producing hormones and neurotransmitters, which block our brain’s ability to think logically, even when a decision could be in our own best interest.

What could we wordsmith the terms dispatch fee or trip fee? Most of our customers don’t want to pay a dispatch fee or trip fee. They don’t want to be charged for it, nor do they want to spend their money on it either.

Let’s help them see this price, cost, fee, or charge for what it truly is: an investment. This applies to any time we ask a customer for money for any of our products or services.

For example: the total investment for this project is $28,765.43.”

“To own this new system, your family would be looking to invest $28,765.43.”

We strongly recommend wordsmithing our “diagnostic fee” to our “diagnostic investment. and if that doesn’t quite roll off our tongue the way we would hope, perhaps we can try “an investment to diagnose” instead.

In addition to these initial six words, there are hundreds of words most of us are accustomed to sharing daily that we would recommend Wordsmithing!

3.    Becoming a R.A.R.E Listener: Listening with The Intent to Understand, Rather than to be Understood.

Ineffective Listening is when we’re only listening with the intent to respond. We’re preparing our response as we listen to others while our focus is on our own needs, desires, and feelings. 

Effective Listening is when we’re listening with the intent to understand.  While effectively listening, we set aside our own opinions, clearing our minds to hear what the person is sharing. This does not mean that we have to agree with the other person.

We’ve developed a simple four-level formula to help us master our effective listening skills. The R.A.R.E. Listening Sequence works wonders in both our personal and business lives in a surprisingly short amount of time.

R.A.R.E. is an acronym that stands for Repeat, Acknowledge the emotion,  Rephrase, and Express. Let’s examine each of them briefly.

R.A.R.E. Level 01: REPEAT 

It forces us to stop thinking about a response and listen to what is being said. We simply listen to their words and REPEAT their words back to them.

R.A.R.E. Level 02: ACKNOWLEDGE THE EMOTION 

We’re not nearly as focused on the words they’re sharing but rather on the way they feel about the subject matter.

R.A.R.E. Level 03: REPHRASE & RELATE

Part 01: REPHRASE. We must think about what is being communicated. We then interpret their communication and put their words into our own.

Part 02: RELATE. We try to imagine being in their shoes and relate to what they are experiencing. If we can’t relate, share that we “can’t imagine” what that must be like.

R.A.R.E. Level 04: EXPRESS

Most of us are very skilled and practice this one consistently, without regard for the first three levels. The key differences here are that Express now comes last, begins with a request, and seeks to understand the other before being understood ourselves.

Becoming a R.A.R.E. Listener is surprisingly simple, but it’s not easy. The closer the relationship, the higher the stakes, the more emotion that is involved, and the more difficult this becomes. Those of us who master this skill will have unlocked magic in our lives that we likely could not have imagined, lowering sales resistance and conflict all along the way.

CONCLUSION

If we’re determined to become a more effective communicator, and we’re seeking to lower sales resistance while practically eliminating conflict from our conversations, you now have a proven formula for doing so.  Now that it’s been summarized into Six Foundations, it’s surprisingly simple, yet it can have a positive effect on your company’s profits. 

Every word we share and how we share each one has an impact. The other person’s dial is moving toward a positive or negative direction at all times. We must decide if mastering these six foundations is worth it. We can have two things in life, but never at the same time. Results or Excuses. 

Doug Wyatt, a former award-winning contractor and two-time Lennox Partner of The Year, founded Synergy Learning Systems. Recognized as Service Nation Alliance’s Preferred Training Partner, Synergy won "The Most Value Added to Your Business" award in April 2023. Doug has trained over 5,000 HVAC and plumbing technicians and worked with over 1,000 home service businesses. Synergy offers live and virtual training, focusing on solving implementation challenges in call centers, service departments, sales departments, and leadership teams. Doug is also a 7 Habits Certified Leadership Instructor.