I was reminded at a recent meeting that good selling is not so much a case of a portfolio of specific skills but simply good communication.

We have a number of ways to measure how good a person is likely to be at selling using a number of specific tools such as Fit4 and elements of Thomas International, Belbin and others. But one trait seems to shine through amongst the best salespeople - they are great communicators.

But what do we mean by this? What we don’t mean is they are great talkers - hence the title of this blog entry. “Selling ain’t telling” is one of our A&P mantras. In other words, talking AT the prospect rarely gets them to commit to buy. Conversing WITH them is way more powerful.

The old adage about having two ears and one mouth and us using them in that proportion (paraphrasing the Greek philosopher Zeno I believe) still applies. Getting a message across is not a function of the number of words we use, or how long a meeting lasts. The best newspaper headlines are often very short, but they still get the message across with impact, sometimes with wit, but always with brevity.

All the great wits and thinkers in the world were always able to cut down critics with a few short words. As Winston Churchill once responded to the accusation that he was inebriated (again): “I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly”. I am not saying we need to insult our prospects, but we can do so much more by choosing our words carefully.

And communication is not just about the economic choice of words. It is the stuff in between…….silence. One of the most powerful closes is “first to speak, loses”. And so it is with handling objections or analysing the prospects needs.

So let’s pay more attention to how we gather information and less to how we broadcast it. Put away the megaphone and pick up the microphone, you could say.