{"id":378,"date":"2011-09-12T07:01:24","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T12:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etereman.com\/remanu\/?p=378"},"modified":"2011-09-12T07:01:24","modified_gmt":"2011-09-12T12:01:24","slug":"sales-calls-something-to-smile-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etereman.com\/remanu\/2011\/09\/12\/sales-calls-something-to-smile-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Sales Calls: Something to Smile About"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>\u201cSmile! They can hear you.\u201d<\/strong><br \/>\nYou\u2019ve heard it a million times. Whether you\u2019re answering an inbound call, or making an outbound sales call, you\u2019ve been trained to bare your pearly whites.<br \/>\nI\u2019ve seen cute little reminders written on the bottoms of mirrors designed to hang in a cubicle. \u201cRemember to smile\u2026it increases your face value,\u201d they say.<br \/>\nOK, great. You get it. You\u2019re supposed to smile. Does it matter? How does the other party truly know? I\u2019ll bet if you asked any sales training \u201cexpert\u201d on the planet, they couldn\u2019t provide you with one ounce of proof. Good thing I\u2019m not an \u201cexpert.\u201d I\u2019m a real-world sales guy and I\u2019ve got the answer.<br \/>\nI discovered the truth (and the proof) about smiling while reading <a title=\"Fascinate by Sally Hogshead\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0061714704\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=rickun-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Fascinate<\/em><\/a>, an amazing book by my good friend, Sally Hogshead. Alright, I didn\u2019t exactly discover it\u2026Sally wrote about it, Professor John J. Ohala at University of California-Berkeley discovered it, and I pretty much just had an Aha! moment when I read it. I literally jumped out of my airplane seat and shouted, \u201cI\u2019ve got to share this with everybody I know in sales.\u201d<a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/carbonnyc\/3199834377\/in\/photostream\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-379\" style=\"margin: 15px\" title=\"Smile Your Way to More Sales\" src=\"http:\/\/etereman.com\/remanu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/smile_your_way_to_more_sales-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"Smile Your Way to More Sales\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nSally explains that scientists themselves failed to understand why humans are the only animals on the planet that smile. In fact, a \u201csmile\u201d on any other species is described as \u201cretracting the mouth corners and baring teeth to show aggression (as in a snarl), intended to display dominant intentions or even imminent attack.\u201d Sounds like a heck of a sales call, huh?<br \/>\nAfter hundreds of years of scientific puzzlement, John J. Ohala divulged a counterintuitive explanation: humans smile because of the way it sounds, not the way it looks. Yep. Smiling changes the way your voice sounds.<br \/>\nThere are several pages of discussion of which sounds are most threatening (deep, low sounds like a bear\u2019s growl or a large dog\u2019s bark) and which sounds are most approachable and loving (higher-pitches produced by smaller, cuter, animals or even the baby-talk we all use when we play with infants). The nail-in-the-coffin comes when Sally deciphers Professor Ohala\u2019s 1980 paper, \u201cThe Acoustic Origin of the Smile,\u201d when she writes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201c[W]hen we smile, we pull the cheek flesh back against our teeth, and make our mouth cavity smaller. A smiling mouth raises the pitch of our voice, which is instinctively perceived as less dominant, more approachable.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So there you go. If you want to threaten a prospect, start your sales call by lowering your voice, tightening your lips, and demanding the order. If you want to actually make the sale, however, you can create a buying atmosphere simply by smiling on the telephone and using your more approachable timbre.<br \/>\nThink about the sirens of ancient Greek mythology. They lured their \u201ccustomers\u201d in with sweet, pleasing sounds and, I can imagine, smiles. Could you picture the seductive sirens accomplishing their mission with mean faces and deep-pitched singing? I\u2019ll bet the sailors would steer their ship to another vendor.<br \/>\nYou won\u2019t make a sale just because you start the call with a smile. But I\u2019ll bet you\u2019ve worked on every other portion of your calling or answering strategy. You already know your warm-up, your probing questions, and your close. The trouble is &#8211; it\u2019s just not working often enough for you.<br \/>\n<strong>Try this:<\/strong> for the next week, smile the entire time you are on the telephone. I want you to smile until your cheeks hurt and your teeth are dry. Change nothing else. Except, that is, for your closing ratio. Odds are, you won\u2019t need a silly mirror or expression (but just in case, here\u2019s a fun one: \u201cSmile before you dial!\u201d). Your increased commission checks will be enough of a reminder\u2026and they\u2019ll give you something to really smile about.<br \/>\nP.S. You owe it to yourself to buy a copy of Sally\u2019s book <a title=\"Fascinate by Sally Hogshead\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0061714704\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=rickun-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>Fascinate<\/em><\/a>. There\u2019s so much information and inspiration for sales people (and it\u2019s not even close to a sales book) that I\u2019m doing you a disservice to only share this one lesson.<br \/>\nNow get out there and show some teeth &#8211; and your customers will show you the money!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cSmile! They can hear you.\u201d You\u2019ve heard it a million times. Whether you\u2019re answering an inbound call, or making an outbound sales call, you\u2019ve been trained to bare your pearly whites. I\u2019ve seen cute little reminders written on the bottoms of mirrors designed to hang in a cubicle. \u201cRemember to smile\u2026it increases your face value,\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[25,26,27],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Sales Calls: Something to Smile About - REMANU<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/etereman.com\/remanu\/2011\/09\/12\/sales-calls-something-to-smile-about\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sales Calls: Something to Smile About - REMANU\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cSmile! They can hear you.\u201d You\u2019ve heard it a million times. Whether you\u2019re answering an inbound call, or making an outbound sales call, you\u2019ve been trained to bare your pearly whites. 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