10: How to sound good

Your tone of voice is super important. According to Chris FOSS in his book, never split the difference. Let's find out why

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Welcome to the bite-size sales podcast where we believe that sales is the most important team and a B to B company, that complacency is the enemy and taking bite-size steps each day to get better at your craft is the best way to improve results. I am your host, Andrew Monahan , and I'm using my 26 years of experience in B2B sales to bring you small, actionable ideas every day to help you get better.

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I'm someone who thinks about tone of voice and voice quite a lot, mostly because I'm very self conscious about my own. I know I have this kind of strange Scottish American accent, you know, I was born in Scotland, grew up there for most of my life and then moved to the U S 20 years ago and over those 20 years in this country, you know, I started off with a pretty decent Scottish accent and then over time without really any intention whatsoever, it's kind of drifted away. And I'm at this weird spot right now and I know when I go home I get uh , back to Scotland. I get a bunch of grief from my friends about the way I sound. And over here people kind of look at me a bit funny and go, what's that weird Twain that you have? And they're trying to figure out. And they asked me if I'm all social nationalities and once in awhile people get correctly and say Scotland. Um , so I'm very conscious by the way I talk. I, I also know that from time to time I might talk a little bit fast again from, you know, the Scottish accent is one where we, we talk fast and sometimes if I'm, if my head and my brain is moving faster than my mouth, I find that I mumble some words from time to time. So sometimes I even wonder why the heck I'm doing a podcast if I'm not so confident about my voice. But let's leave that to one side. What I found though over the time is no one likes to hear their own voice, but it's what other people know us at it . Notice what we're all about. People are not so credible cause it's just how you talk. Right? And people just couldn't accept it. Um, Chris Voss writes about tone of voice in his book, never split the difference. And, and Chris Voss is an ex FBI hos hostage negotiator. Um, and in that role , uh, having them that before, my understanding is that he spent a lot of time on the phone with people. So tone of voice is important. And in sales we spent a lot of time on the phone as well. Some of our sales roles are entirely phone-based. Even those out in the field, we'll spend a lot of time on the phone as well. So tone of voice on the phone is key. So let's, let's just read from the Balkans and see what he says. When deliberating on a negotiating strategy strategy or approach, people tend to focus all their energies on what to say or do. But is how we are our general demeanor and delivery. That is both the easiest thing to enact and the most immediately effective mode of influence. Our brains don't just process and understand the actions and words of others, but their feelings and intentions to the social meaning of their behavior and their emotions. On a mostly unconscious level, we can understand the minds of others not through any kind of thinking, but through quite literally grasping what the other person is feeling. Think of it as a kind of involuntary neurological telepathy. Each of us in every given moment signaling to the world around us whether we are ready to play or fight, laugh or cry. When we radiate warmth and acceptance. Conversations just seem to flow. When we enter a room with a level of comfort and enthusiasm, we attract people toward us. Smile at someone on the street and as a reflex they'll smile back. Understanding that reflex and putting it into practice is critical to the success of just about every negotiating skill there is to learn. That's why your most important and powerful tool in any verbal communication is your voice. You can use your voice to intentionally reach into someone's brain and flip an emotional switch. This trusting to trusting, nervous to come in an instant, the switch will flip just like that. With the right delivery, there are essentially three voice tones available to negotiators. The late night FM DJ voice, the positive slash playful voice and the direct or assertive voice. Forget the assertive voice for now except in very rare circumstances using it is like slapping yourself in the face while you're trying to make progress. You're signaling you're signaling dominance onto your counterpart. We'll either aggressively or passively aggressively push back against attempts to be controlled. Most of the time you should be using the positive playful voice is the voice. When easygoing, good nature person, your attitude is light and encouraging the key or is to relax and smile while you're talking. A smile even while talking on the phone as an impact tonally that the other person will pick up on. So that's the passage from the book. Um, and you know, for those of us on the phone a lot, you know, we're kind of held bag . They say that some at 58% of communication is through body language filling on the phone. You can do that, but what you can do is influence how you approach each of our calls. You can think about whether you're positive, you can think about the energy you're bringing, you can think the tone of how you're communicating all to try and make the other person feel comfortable working with you. So if this is something that you want to get better at, I would recommend that you get into the habit of doing something very simple before each call. But maybe before each prospect visit, before his customer visit and for a few seconds, just check how you're approaching the call or the meeting. Check your mentality, your mindset, and check your the way that you're talking and intentionally go in there to put people at ease and make them want to work with you.

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