Employment Skills: Selling Strategies: Magical Words

Below is a learning activity that is designed to help participants learn which words they should use to deliver more persuasive sales pitches. It takes about 30 minutes to complete.

KEYWORDS

selling strategies, listening activity, sales pitch, appeal, magic, words, adjectives

DESCRIPTION

The class guesses the 15 most persuasive English words. They watch TV commercials and listen for the magical words. They identify the words that appeal most to each of the four personality types.

OBJECTIVE

The participants will understand persuasive words to use in a sales pitch.

LENGTH

30 minutes

MATERIALS

A recording of several television or radio commercials, a way to show those recordings to your audience, chalkboard, chalk, and eraser. Here are some links to some commercials found on YouTube.com, TVAdsView.com or ClassicTVAds.com.

PROCESS

Step 1: Set up the playback device for your recorded television or radio commercials.

Step 2: Say: There are at least 15 words that are very persuasive in the English language What are they? Answers: Discover, good, money, easy, guaranteed, health, love, new, proven, results, safe, save, own, free, and best.

Step 3: Ask everyone to write down the 15 words in a column.

Step 4: Say: I have recorded several television and radio commercials. As you watch or hear them, listen for the 15 magical sales words. Make a mark beside the word each time you hear it.

Step 5: Ask the participants how many times that the 15 words were used. Ask the participants if there were any other sales words that were used frequently.

Step 6: Ask the following questions:

A. What makes the 15 words magical? Answers may include: They name things that people value.

B. If advertisers have discovered these words to be effective, why would you want to use them in your sales pitch? Answers may include:

  • To make the pitch more effective.
  • To trigger a desired response from the customer.

C. What words specifically appeal to your personality style? Answers may include:

  • Blue — love, new
  • Gold — guaranteed, proven, results, safe, save, own
  • Green — discover
  • Orange — easy, health, free, best

Step 7: Divide the participants into the four personality styles and instruct each group to make a list of words they feel would be effective when selling to their particular personality style. Ask them to share their answers with the class.

  • Blue – love, romantic, charming, attractive, elegant, unusual, colorful, original, lovely, beautiful, musical, artistic, graceful, bewitching, captivating, delightful, pleasing, idyllic, fanciful, popular
  • Gold – tried and true, protected, control, dominate, classy, practical, long-lasting, dependable, refined, efficient, savings, nest egg, bargain
  • Green – statistics, innovative, visionary, future, ingenious, inventive, fascinating, clever, intelligent, gifted, bright, sharp, detect, perceive, discerning, observe
  • Orange – hot, sizzle, spicy, buff, stud, extravaganza, extravagant stupendous, colossal, latest, contemporary, entertaining, irresistible, tantalizing, bargain

This learning activity was originally published in the Selling Strategies section of the Employment Skills volume in the Insight Skills Library. If you are an Associate-level member at InsightLearning.com, you may access this activity and its associated handouts (if any), as well as 1827 additional educational activities, by clicking on the following link:

http://www.insightlearning.com/p.asp?p=library/skillslibrary/employment/e11/e11031.asp