The Art of Communication

https://youtu.be/N2WonaBr4DI

Thanks for tuning into the Sales Genius Live. I want to say, I do appreciate you coming back and check it out another episode. Today's episode, I want to talk to you about his communication. But first off let's address this. Sales is only a numbers game if you're uneducated. The better you get the easier it is to take advantage of every opportunity. So let's up our sales IQ and let's make it a very profitable year.

So let's start talking about, how do we close more deals today? Let's talk communication. When I talk about communication as a species we love to communicate and there's only a couple ways in which we do it. Anytime we get together whether we're sitting down to sell somebody face to face, if we're sitting in a in a showroom for an automotive space, if we're in an art gallery and we're trying to actually show somebody pieces, could be anytime you're showing a home if you're in real estate, you are standing in front of somebody and we communicate three different ways and I want to touch on those three different ways. I want to talk about how we adapt. Because we tend to get pigeonholed into one way of communication and then we tell everybody that's our style and that's just who I am as a person. But I want you to also figure out that you yourself have the ability to change the way you communicate and I just want to help you close more deals. So let's look at it.

There's three different ways in which we communicate as human beings when we're standing face to face. The first way is through body language. That's how my body moves back and forth how I can show you things that I'm looking for or what I'm trying to convey is an emotion based off facial expressions, how my body is postured and what it is you can visually look at me and see.

The second way we communicate is via tone and inflection. Tone and inflection allows you to know if I'm being sincere, if I'm being sarcastic, if what I'm saying is actually true. These are things you can pick up based on tone inflection. You can actually tell via the podcast here if I'm smiling, because as soon as I start smiling the tone changes in my voice and you can hear it and pick up on it.

And then the third way that we communicate is using our words. So the words that we choose to actually speak to someone is very, very important. But I want to stop and break down. Now we got those three different ways. We got body language, we got tone and inflection and we got our words. So I'm going to ask you right now, which one of those three while we're standing face to face, what are those three of those three things is the one that communicates the most? The one that communicates the most I'll wait for a second you guys go ahead and yell it out at your radio or your phone, if you're on YouTube you can just start typing it if you want to, but what I want you to say, I want you to realize is that of body language tone and inflection in words what actually goes through the most and what communicates the most to you is body language. Body language is 55% of our communication. And that's super important for you to understand that as we start talking to one another, we've all seen somebody out there who likes to talk using their hands, but we're using more than just our hands when it comes to body language. If someone's talking you in rolls their eyes, you visually saw that and you can tell that you know exactly what's going on.

The second most communicative way is with tone and inflection and that's 38% of our communication. So 55% is your body language. So over half of it comes from your body. 38% of it comes from what? From your tone and inflection. How I say something. So if I were to look at you and go, hey, nice sweater-vest. Yeah, I know that's funny. But the second time I looked at you and I said, hey, nice sweater-vest. Tone and inflection tells you, hey you there some, something different about the second way you said it, I don't think you're being as sincere as you were in the first one.

The third way that we communicate is words and that is a mere 7% of what it is that we communicate. 7%, less than 10% of our overall communication comes from the words we're using when we're meeting with somebody face-to-face.

So now I need you to understand, most of our communication style comes from what we learned growing up, what we learned growing up is how do we actually communicate. Well, typically we're talking to someone face to face we're sitting in front of them our parents are talking to us, they're teaching us how we should be communicating. Now, this is great as long as you are conscious of your body language, you're conscious of your tone and inflection and you're choosing to use the right words. But can we all agree right now that we are using words today that we learned along the way got better results than what we did when we were younger? There's times for you to cuss, there's times for you to use juvenile words, but as you get older you realize there's a far fewer times that you're going to use those words. So we are continuously adapting the words that we're using to put it out there, but please understand something and get to the same point that I'm at right now.

We are sitting down and we are using words that require our body to actually communicate the answer. Body language. If 55% of my communication is body language and now I'm sitting with you and I'm saying, okay great, let me start talking to you. I need my body language to relay that and the words that I'm using require my body language. It requires my tone and inflection when you look at that. So if I were to increase my words, I'm only talking about a 7% increase in communicative skills. So if I want to get a little bit better, I choose to use better words. So that's wonderful. If I can control my body and how it's moving then I can actually gain more communication with somebody else and get it to be a deeper, more meaningful conversation. My tone and inflection.

I have several friends that when I'm looking at them and I'm talking with them, their tone and inflection for one, if it's a really annoying tone, I don't want to talk to them, guess what I'm texting to them, okay? Because if their voice hurts my ears, I don't want to talk to them. But when we're looking this and say, okay, body language, I can sit across from you, use the right tone and inflections, I increase my words, I pick up a 7% increase in my ability to communicate with one another and we need to continue to communicate with one another.

Now, we can all agree, we're using words that we've always put together with our body language. Now, today's prospects are they all walking into your showroom gallery, are they all walking up to you on the street and saying, hey, I saw all the advertisements you did for your real estate company. I saw you on Instagram, I saw you on here. Are we able to do that? This is why video is so important. This is why Instagram live is so important, why Facebook live, this is why we pick up so much on Snapchat and things like that is because we need the body language that goes apart along with the words and the tone and inflection so that we can actually sit back and say, this is valid, this is real and I understand what's going on. When you just post out the words, it doesn't make a lot of sense. That's why what's really funny is if you watch somebody's picture that they're posting up and then you go look down below and read the words, they don't match. I've seen this half-naked guys, half-naked girls, posing, putting out their best assets up for the picture and then down below is some scripture quote. And you sit there and go, I don't understand the correlation of what's there. You're visually trying to track me into something and then you're going to go put words that are out of context with the picture. Where if it was a video and you were sitting there saying it you couldn't actually go through with it, because your brain says, no, I'm sorry, there doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

So right now our customers are reaching out to us less and less with the face-to-face visit. Face to face visit is earned after we've talked to you via email, text or phone. My favorite is the phone. Why? I look just like Brad Pitt over the phone, because I can be who I need to be on the phone.

So let's stop and realize, I am going to say that I use body language to communicate 55% of my overall intent and the words and everything else I'm trying to get across. 55% of this is me moving through this program. If I'm going to sit down now and say, let me pick up the telephone. So I grab that telephone so I can talk to a prospect. I start talking to this prospect and I'm going to talk to them using the tone and inflection and the words that I that require my body language, because that's what I've been taught to do. So now stop and realize, do you see why we're not as effective on the phone? How many salespeople do you know that if you dropped a customer in front of you, you'd sit down and you'd go, boom, if they are closeable, I will close them. That's going to be another episode where I'm going to prove to you that's not actually true, but it's okay because we need to be driven a little bit by our ego but I want to add some intelligence to that.

When you look at that and say, okay great, I sat down with this person and I can close them, then they pick up the phone to talk to a prospect and when they pick up the phone, it's horrible. They pick up the phone and it just doesn't result in an appointment. They try to sell everything over the phone. Have you ever sat down and realized, have you ever watched this or talked to somebody on the phone, maybe it was you. You talked to this person over the telephone and when you talk to this person over the telephone, they dropped the phone. Or have you ever watched somebody try to give directions to somebody and they're like, yeah, just go straight down the street here and then when you get to the intersection turn. And they're like yeah just go ahead and turn.

Well you have to sit back and go, hey, guess what body language talker? They don't know which way you pointed. So since they didn't know which way you pointed, it doesn't make any sense the person on the other end of the phone and if they went, yeah, yeah, okay. Guess what? They're not showing up for their appointment.

So we are using body language terminology that we have grown up using and we're using that in a medium that does not have body language with it. So let's just stop and realize. So if you wrote this down before you wrote down body language 55%, you wrote down tone and inflection 38%, you wrote down words 7%. So I'm just going to go ahead and cross off body language and 55% because I lost 55% of my ability to communicate with these people.

So now what is the most important driver when I'm on that telephone? The most important driver that's on there is tone and inflection. It's no longer 38%, it is now 80%. So at 80%, if that's actually 80% of my communication, then how you sound on the phone and how you deliver that message with your voice is absolutely crucial to its success. This is why when I do teaching to somebody, I go, answer the telephone enthusiastically with energy. You don't know who's calling you, you don't know if somebody who's picking up the phone and talking to or you're calling, you don't know what kind of day they're having, you don't want to do this. Guess what? Prospects get to be who they are and what they want. But I want to talk to you and say, think about what your average transaction price is and are you giving that kind of impression to somebody that's there. I do a lot of training in the automotive space. In the automotive space your average vehicle cost across the United States, across all the brands is going to run around right around $28,000. I think it's $27,577. But when you look at that and say, $28,000, when you pick up that phone and you're talking to that that client who's calling in to think about something, are you giving them $28,000 effort? Do you sound like you're worthy of giving $28,000?

My real-estate people, stop and look and say, I'm out in Orange County California. I think if you're not making 300 grand as a family, you're not living out here. You're not buying, we know that. It is absolutely crucial to understand that if the average house price is upwards of $600,000 are you answering the phone and sounding like somebody who is going to be worthy of $600,000 investment?

So have you ever called your cable company, I want to answer that one, call your cable company or call your cell phone provider? Call your cell phone provider, what are you going to get from your cell phone provider? You're going to talk to your cell phone provider and they're going to answer the phone and go, yeah, thanks for calling, XYZ cellular. And you go, wow, this person just doesn't sound excited. And I'm going to give you a little homework assignment. Because I want you to call your cellular company and I want you to talk to them and I want you to listen to the person who answers the phone. On a scale of one to ten, this person at best will be a five. Because why? Because companies know that if you're calling support, you're calling customer service, when you call those people, you have an agenda. Can we all agree? I'm calling because I want something taken off my bill. I want to check something that was charged to me or I'm trying to get a new line. I want to do something. You have something, otherwise you wouldn't be calling them and they know that. So their answer is guess what? You will put up with mediocre service in order to accomplish your goal.

So now you're going to be calling into this company. Have you ever had somebody on the phone? Probably once out of every 25 times you call you're going to find somebody at your cell phone company that is just flat excited to answer the phone. That person's like, wow, yes, thanks for calling. Oh my goodness. Blah-blah-blah-blah. And they're all super helpful and you feel really good about that person. But you're not going to find them all the time. You want to know where all of them are hiding. They're all hiding in the cancellation Department. When you get really, really good at customer service and you get really good and all of a sudden there's actual compliments coming out of people saying, hey, guess what? I really like this person. I like them. They're really good. Can I talk to a manager and let them know the little survey at the end when they you punch in, you get all fives and then somebody actually leaves a message and says, yeah, I'm going to say, wow, this person was great. I talked to Joe and Joe is fantastic, blah-blah-blah. And you go, wow, that's fantastic too. They look down and go, well, you get enough of those praise points. You're going to go into cancellations.

So now I want you to call in say, you know what, I want to cancel. I want to cancel, just get me over to the department that cancels. When you go and get to that department, they are going to answer the phone and they are going to be human rainbows. They're going to sit back and just light up your day, you're going to be like wow this is so fantastic and you'll say, you know what? The phone keeps dropping. And they're going to go, oh my gosh, really? I didn't even realize. I've never even heard that for many of our clients. And you're like, what? But they're going to be so excited to help you that you will stay. You will stay connected and they're like, yes, I won, because I put the great customer service in on somebody who's getting ready to leave so your mission had changed to I want to depart. And now you're going to find somebody fantastic to talk to and that person's going to say, I got to keep them and now I get my bonus because I retained enough of our clients. And that just helps you to do what? Okay. Great, now I feel excited but next time you call in, what's going to happen you get that same miserable person who's on their 200th call of the day and sounds like it. So don't ever, ever be that person.

I called my cable company once. I called into it. The person answers the phone, thank you for calling, blah-blah-blah communications. This is Amanda speaking and I'm so happy to help you today. And I was like, wow, you know Amanda? That's fantastic. You sound fantastic and I teach on this. I teach people on tone inflection that was amazing, great job. And she immediately said, yeah they sent us to a two-week training on how we're supposed to talk on the phone and that's what I learned. And I was like, stop-stop. Amanda please go back. That's all I was screaming in my head, go back to the other person, go back to the other person. And then I was like, well, you did great and then immediately she went right back on to her script and she went back on to and she was like and well how can I be of assistance to you today? And I was like whoo, let's just keep that person on, that's the person I need. But it's okay. Over the telephone we can be whatever we need to be, we can adapt. We could be who the client needs us to be because I don't have to fake anything. I'm just going to sit back match beer talk at the same pace as them tone and inflection, I'm always going to be an excited version of them.

So I'm going to talk to them over the phone, tone and inflection is fantastic and I'm going to be excited. You can hear my voice when I get excited you can hear my voice just listening to this, you can sit down and say to yourself, you know what? He drank his own kool-aid. Joe actually believes in what he is actually teaching us today and it is and I've trained across the nation and into Canada teaching people how to pick up the phone and answer the phone the way that it sounds best and is worthy of the price point in which you're selling and I don't care. I will tell you right now go into a Starbucks with me every day. I'm at a Starbucks, I'm there. I will tell you that I go into ones down the street by my house when I go into that one, I walk in the door and I one of the baristas in the back, his name's Chris, he’ll just turn around and yell, Good Morning Joe as I walk in the door and I'm like, good morning Chris. And it wakes up everybody in there but I'm going to match his energy and go back and forth with him but he chose to remember my name. He chose to laugh at my actual name that I put on mine because I'm getting iced tea every day so it's Joe all my tea. So that's the name on my app when it comes through. So is it a barista has to read it out, they typically pick it up when they get to the end and go, Joe all my tea and then they go, ah Almighty yeah. I'm like, yeah, that's exactly it, you got it. And it's like great.

So now they're they're engaged and they're talking but when I look at this and say tone an inflection, let's get back to it, over the telephone is 80% of my communication, 80% of my ability to communicate with the other person is tone and inflection so I better sound professional and I better sound enthusiastic and I better sound like I know what I'm talking about.

Now words, they were 7% when I'm sitting in front of somebody. The words that I'm using over the telephone are no longer 7%. What do they are? What are they right now? It's 80% of it is tone and inflection, boom, 20%. So I'm at 20% is what my words are now worth in my communication program. Do you see that all of a sudden when you pick up the phone, you went from 7% to 20% and you go doesn't matter Joe, as long as I sound good, it's going to work. And I'm going to say, yeah. You can sound good over the phone. Absolutely, you can sound good over the phone. But if your words suck you don't end up with the right result because you're at a 20% disadvantage over the telephone.

So somebody may sound great over the phone that just means you don't dislike them. What does it mean? It just means, hey, I'm going to tolerate you, let you talk to it. A lot of you those people that call you that wants you to donate to people, they've got the guy who picks up the phone like there's a guy that I train out and one of the dealerships that I go to that seriously this man's voice is so deep and so resonating when he sits and talks to you and so all of a sudden, I get somebody on the phone who gets up phone goes, yes, I'm calling for the policeman's ball and this, and you're like, oh wow, you sound really good, but what do the words say?

Now 20%, which means it's not the most important thing over the phone but what I do want to point out is that 7% to 20% is almost a 300% improvement, in importance almost 300% more important is the words you're using when you're on the telephone. So you need to pick better words because words you're using require body language. We determined that already. Your tone and inflection got to be a little bit off because you had body language to back it up and you can understand it but I want you to say, right now guys, let's just stop and look at it and say, no, I'm telling you, 20% is 300% just a little shy of 300% over what's the importance of words when I'm face to face. So I got to find a new set of words. I got to find a new set that will communicate more because it's more important now and I lost my biggest communicator.

Now, can we all stop and understand that over the telephone the words I use face-to-face are not going to be as impactful or communicate what I'm looking for? We all agree on that? I heard you say yes, it was in your mind. But that's exactly what I'm going to say.

Now, let's go one step further. One step further means what? We have to sit down and we're going to say let's go text. Texting, absolutely brilliant way to communicate today. I use texts for almost everything I can. Why? Because 93% of all text messages are read within five minutes. 93%. We don't get that kind of open rate on emails, we sure as heck don't get that many people answering the telephone when we're calling them. I track it, it's somewhere close to 17% answer rate for telephone calls that are outbound. 17%. I'd much rather have a 93% success rate, but you got to follow the laws within your state as well with opt-ins and things like that. Now in California the People's Republic of California where we are everything protects the buyer, not the actual company that's selling.

So we're going to go and switch to an email now. So I'm going to switch to email or a text message. So when I switch to email or text message, what did I just lose? I just lost tone and inflection. So I've taken out the body language and I've taken out my tone and inflection. All of these things are gone. What's the only thing I have to communicate with? My words. And if everything counts on the words you're using and you're using words that require tone and inflection and they require your body language to get the point across, do you see why all of a sudden we don't have a lot of success on an email, we don't have a lot of success on text messaging? This is what I want you to understand.

So stop for a second and realize, just for a second realize, hey, guess what? Whoo, mind blown. I'm using the wrong words because I'm using words that require my body language and I'm using words that require my actual voice for someone to understand what I'm saying.

So looking at that the words are now 100% of my ability to communicate. They went from 7% to 100%. So you need to change and adapt. You need to find better words. So if I'm going to go sit down and put better words in play, let's stop for a second right now. If your words are perfect and everything is exactly the way you wanted it to do, who gets to assign the tone and inflection in a text message or an email? Who gets to decide the tone and inflection of the words that they're reading? The actual person who's reading it. The person who reads the email and reads the actual text message gets to a sign that actual tone. So they get to hear your intent. They get to hear that based on their assumption.

So let's just say you sit down in the morning, you wake up, you have a fight in the morning or a disagreement, different word, you have a challenging situation in the morning with your significant other. So you have this challenging incident in the morning and then you leave and you both head to the office to go to work. When you get to the office, there's a text messages from your significant other that says, have a great day. That's what the words say. What is the tone and inflection tell you? Have a great day. You're like whoa, whoa, hey that's not how I wrote it and I get that a lot with people. I get a lot of people, a lot of communication happens because of text message failure because I say something, I'm laughing when I say it or type it and then all of a sudden I'm sitting down that somebody reads it with the nastier tone than what I sent it with. And then I get the, what's wrong with you? What's your attitude? Why do I have this? And I'm like, you know you do the same thing. Baby what's wrong? What's going on? Why are you upset? You know what you did? No, I don't know what I did. You read a tone that wasn't there to begin with.

One of my new favorite tools to use whether it's DMing with on Instagram, when I'm dealing with other thought leaders and business leaders when we're communicating back and forth and on text messages is I used the little microphone function where it records my voice. So now I'm cheating. I'm taking the 93% open rate and I'm requiring that person to press the play button when they listen to it so they can hear my tone and inflection at 80% and then 20% be my words that are better.

So what am I trying to do? I'm trying to help you close more business. So if we go all the way to the point of saying in my text messages and in my emails, I'm going to use better words. So if I go in and I use better words at 100% effectivity, if I sit down and we go let's talk about some better words. So I will tell you right now, I don't use the words, no problem. I always say my pleasure, absolutely, certainly or of course. Why? Because all of those sound better and then the words no problem, because words are so important, words put pictures in people's heads. I'll give you an example.

I was training up in Northern California a large company and one of the sales associates that was on the phone was talking to the person and they said to the person on the phone, look, once you're here, and we sit down and we review all the options with you, I know that we will be able to make a deal with you because if you're physically here then I will go to my sales manager, which by default just took away power from you, but that's a side note different topic. If I'll go to my sales manager because you're here, I will twist his arm off to make sure you get a deal. All of you there listen to this. What did you just picture in your head? What did you just picture? You just saw somebody's arm and I don't know who it is, but if you have a sales manager you work for you that was that person. But all of a sudden, boom, you saw somebody's arm being twisted behind their back and boom, out, gone. Try think of it as a cartoon, so it's a little easier for the brain to process but stop and understand those words bring in really negative connotations to it.

Now if I'm sitting with you face-to-face and I'm like, hey, hey, hey and I'm trying to make it all funny, that's a little bit easier to deal with. I can actually sit down and deal with that better because I'm watching you do it and I'm listening to you and I can see your face and realize that you're being humorous. But a lot of times you can't do that.

I was running a company and we were very, very successful at this company and I had one guy that would sell 25 units a month and that was pretty impressive, month-in month-out. But this person English, I think was his third language. So him speaking with his dialect was almost impossible to understand. And we used to set all the time but this person would sell 25 units a month sitting across from people and showing them what they wanted. Good thing about math is that it's universal, you don't have to worry about language barrier. But he would sit down and he would talk with these people, he would do a product demonstration with them, he would do a needs assessment with them and show them everything that could be done and he would move 25 of these very expensive products every single month. But I will tell you that sitting across from him we used to do this and where we were at, I would leave my office and walk out to see him sitting with his clients and when he’s sitting in his clients, his clients were completely leaning over the desk like over the halfway point and they were leaning over the desk and they were just staring at his mouth. They were just staring at his mouth because they're so trying to figure out what the words are that are coming out of his mouth. They're just trying to figure out what it is he's saying. And then it was like we used to laugh because we're like, look man, they are just engrossed in what he's saying but it's because they're trying to figure out what he's saying. So they still bought. Why is that? Because when he presented them with an offer to purchase, when they sat down, they can grab the actual offer, they're like oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait and they're looking at over going, oh, now I can see the math. But his body language and his tone and inflection told them flat-out, he's not trying to take advantage of me. He's not trying to do to screw me over and if that's the case they felt okay with doing it because once the map worked out and it was logically done, their emotional tie-in to him was you're a good guy and you're not trying to hurt me. So that makes it easier for them to take the steps. But I'll tell you right now I never had him take a foam pop, an opportunity to sell over the phone. No, no, no, no, I sure as heck didn't do that.

Now at the same time he could turn around and write in English better than he could speak it, but shame on you if somebody is sitting across from you and they're looking at you and they go, well I could totally tell who wrote that based on the fact they write the way they talk. When you move to a medium that does not have your body language or tone an inflection to it, you need to up your game and be somebody that's more important. I don't say your words are mattering more. So let's go after that okay let's put in there that the product demonstrates this, not saying, hey, it'll do this if you want it to. Things like that don't make any sense when you're going to type things in.

I'm also going to go one step further and throw out there if you're texting with your clients, they can use all the emojis they want, you cannot. You are representative of their person to purchase a product from. I want that person. No one ever gets mad and goes there to professional when it came to earning my money. So don't throw out the emojis. We don't need to go put something in.

I had a client of mine. I'm sitting there in he's texting while I'm training and he goes ha-ha-ha and as he would think, I said, wait, wait, wait stop, why are you laughing? What are you laughing about? And he goes, look this is my reply. And I said, I'm sorry, who is it we're sending this to? Oh, this guy owns like three companies and this and that. I go, and what are we selling him and he's like we're selling this products about $120,000. And I said, and you're sending over little hearts and you're sending over little smiley faces and things like that. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right now? You can't send this over. And some of you are going to sit back and tell yourself right now, you'll argue with me. You're going, you know what it works for me. And I'm going to tell you if you keep track of your numbers as you should because we're trying to improve our numbers to the point where sales is no longer this number game, but when you have your numbers then we can start talking about improving. But you will send out these little emojis all day long and a majority of your high ticket clients are not appreciative of your version of what their conversation means to you. I want you to own the relationship and I want you to own your words.

So if we sat down and we changed your words at the level of your text messages and your emails and we talked you better words and you got better words. Heck, I just talked about a bunch of them. If you elevated your words to the point that they meant more and communicated more, do you understand that that just improved that piece? It improved your text message in your email capability. If I use those same words when I'm on the telephone, do you think that that 20% of the words, if I had better words when all of a sudden make a better impact over my telephone calls? Yeah, it would.

Now if I increased my words on my text messages, if I improved my words on my text messages and emails and I use those same improved words over the telephone and got a better result, do you think when I add my body language back in face-to-face that 7% would actually help me more? Yeah, I agree. And that's what I want to understand about communicating as a human being. The first thing you've got to do is start improving your words. Improve your words and improve your tone and inflection. Your body language is your body language. That's just how you communicate but a customer or a prospect that's in front of you, that's what you know how to do already. So deal with that customer, keep your body language that works for you.

If you're selling customers right now at every four customers your prospects you're going to make a deal, that's the bare minimum you should be at, that's the bare minimum and let's improve from that point going forward and we'll talk about that in a later episode.

But I do want to thank you for taking the time. If you choose to see the value that was in this program, I appreciate you for doing that. If you didn't then I understand. But all I want to tell you is I want to raise your sales IQ, so that we can do what? We can actually take the numbers game of sales that you're in and make it less of a numbers game and more of a sure thing. So I appreciate your time. If you want share, subscribe, otherwise I will see you on the next episode. Thanks so much. Take care.

#salesgenius #thesalesgenius #ingraminteractive #howtosellmore #moredeals #moremoney #morehappy #thebdcgenius #thisisphonetraining #thisisinternettraining #socialmedia #automotive #real estate #mortgage #relationships #communication #genius #joe ingram