English for Sales: How to Approach the Client

Utilizing the appropriate words to deliver your message is of utmost importance. Avoid vague and informal language and strive to speak clearly and professionally.

Address your customers by name to build an intimate and lasting connection, showing your care for them as part of a team effort. Employ an upbeat tone throughout any discussion.

1. Greetings

First impressions matter! Be sure to start the conversation in an approachable and welcoming tone of voice in order to put customers at ease and build trust between yourself and them.

Here are a few sample greeting statements you can use when greeting potential clients via emails or chats. They are formal but friendly and focus on using their name as an indication that you value their business.

Personalize your greeting statement so that customers know you remember them, making them feel special – an integral component of customer loyalty building.

If you’re emailing multiple recipients at once, use “all” instead of listing everyone’s names. This approach remains polite but less formal than writing “Dear (name).”

Your greeting statement can let customers know you are available and committed to providing superior customer service. This can show them you take their needs seriously.

2. Questions

Client needs and wants can be hard to anticipate, so in order to meet them effectively a sales professional must ask pertinent questions of them. Here are a few ideas which may help an agent better understand potential clients and sell more efficiently:

What is Your Company’s Main Goal? Answers to this question can reveal much about a prospect’s priorities and ability to implement solutions into their business. For example, if they say they want to expand customer bases or boost recurring revenues as their top objectives it could signal they would be interested in your product/services.

What other solutions are you considering?

Customers typically evaluate multiple products and services before making their purchasing decision, so asking this question allows you to learn what features your customer is searching for and compare how your offering compares against those from competitors.

What do you enjoy most about the products/services you are currently using? Asking this question is an effective way of gauging customer satisfaction with current offerings, which could provide an opportunity to offer your solution and increase client retention rates. Furthermore, answering such inquiries helps create more targeted marketing campaigns and can offer invaluable feedback as to how products can be improved to be more attractive to future customers.

3. Offers

As with any sales conversation, making the appropriate offers at the right times can help maintain an open dialogue with potential clients and encourage them to move closer towards closing a sale.

To achieve this, it is crucial that we utilize positive language and avoid negative words or phrases when conversing with customers. For instance, refraining from using “problem” can prevent customers from misinterpreting it as something negative and emphasizing instead its benefits (i.e. better value for money or providing the ability to customize).

If you are uncertain of the appropriate English for sales conversations, a great place to begin would be watching videos with native English speakers online and paying close attention as they speak – such as FluentU. Another effective practice tool would be asking native speaker friends or family if they can help role play conversations so you can gain first-hand experience discussing sales topics in English.

4. Conclusions

Conclusions can often be boring and readers tend to ignore them, so for maximum impact consider writing articles with compelling conclusions that encourage readers to take the necessary actions after reading your content.

Use emotionally or sensory language to evoke powerful images in the reader’s mind and leave an indelible imprint of your central points on them. This will leave them with a lasting impression.

Restating your thesis and main points can often help to draw readers in, so the conclusion should contain new language that keeps their attention. Concluding articles should also be conversational and engaging so as to build trust between reader and author.