Listen for Your Tone

by Graham Denton

As you know if you've ever received a sarcastic "compliment," inflection and tone of voice can radically alter meaning. That's why it's so important, when you're speaking to customers, that you listen carefully not just to the words of the conversation, but to the attitudes that are implied by the way they're expressed. This means your words, too, not just your customers'. Truly professional sellers, according to Zig Ziglar, spend as much time honing the nuances of their vocal expression as they do working out the specifics of the words they will say. In his book Secrets of Closing the Sale, Ziglar recommends using a cassette recorder as a means of training your voice to improve sales effectiveness.

Because voice training is something that 95 percent of salespeople never even think about, Ziglar calls it the sales professional's "most important single undeveloped skill." To demonstrate why it can make such a difference in your presentations, he asks us to read the same sentence eight different ways. Here's his example, with brief translations of what each version "means":

1."I did not say he stole the money." A simple declaration.

2."I did not say he stole the money." Maybe somebody said it, but it wasn't me.

3."I did not say he stole the money." A "vigorous denial" that I said it.

4."I did not say he stole the money." Although maybe I thought it or implied it.

5."I did not say he stole the money." I think that the money was stolen, but by somebody else.

6."I did not say he stole the money." Maybe he borrowed it, or somebody loaned it to him, or he got it in some other perfectly legal manner.

7."I did not say he stole the money." I think his hand was in some other till.

8."I did not say he stole the money." Innocent on that charge, but guilty on another.

As this exercise indicates, very minor shifts in tonal emphasis can generate major differences in expressive meaning-even when you as the speaker are unaware of these nuances.

So become aware. Follow Ziglar's advice. Use a tape machine to record your presentation, either the actual presentation in front of a customer (this is ideal, if he or she permits it) or a practice presentation at your home or office. You'll probably be amazed to discover, Ziglar says, that you have much to improve in terms both of content and of tone. Many people are shocked to find that they speak in a monotone, or that they misplace sentence stress or talk too loudly. Whatever your particular speaking style, it's likely that you can improve it by literally listening to yourself.

And don't fool yourself into thinking that you don't really sound that way. There's less distortion in recording than you might think, so that when you record yourself you can be fairly confident that what you are hearing on the replay is what your prospects are hearing. "In order to develop the most effective methods of dealing with your prospects, Ziglar says, "you must know how you sound to your prospects. Recording your presentation enables you to do exactly that."