How to Sound More Confident Than 99% of Salespeople

Good Morning. Today is the last real working day of the week. July 3rd is observed as a federal holiday, so most of your prospects will be out of office by 3pm today and gone until Monday. This is your last chance to throw a few Hail Marys before Monday, when you'll be stuck sending those "hope you had a great 4th, any chance you're free for a call this week?" emails. Make them count. Now, let's get into today's Follow Up. (:

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At one of my first sales jobs, I got flown out to the company’s SF office as a brand new BDR to give a pitch on the company's HR software.

Best believe I felt like a big deal checking into my budget hotel that night, but that’s beside the point….

I was in my early 20s, and I barely understood what the product did. I stood up, gave the pitch, sat back down, and felt pretty good about it.

The feedback I got was four words. "You hedge too much."

I had no idea what that meant. So they played it back for me. Every other sentence had a "sort of" or "kind of" or "I think” or “it should" in it. I was hedging everything I said because I wasn't confident in what I was talking about. And it showed.

I still got the job, but I still hear that feedback in my head today.

Most reps never get that feedback. So they just keep hedging, rambling, and rushing through calls without realizing what it costs them.

So today I’m breaking down the 4 things you can start doing right now to sound more confident on every sales call.

Sort of.
Kind of.
Maybe.
Should be.
Possibly.

These words feel harmless, but they destroy your credibility. Research shows that indirect communication makes people seem less trustworthy.

When you say, "this should probably help with your pipeline issues," your prospect hears uncertainty.

But when you say, “based on what you told me, this is where we can help,” they hear someone who knows what they’re talking about.

Researchers found that hedged information gets flagged as inaccurate or unimportant by listeners. Their brains literally mark it as less trustworthy.

Try recording your next few calls and count how many hedge words you use. The number will surprise you.

Most reps talk too fast on sales calls because they think speed signals competence.

The research says the opposite. The National Center for Voice and Speech found that the optimal speaking rate for understanding is 150 to 160 words per minute. If you go above 180 WPM, comprehension drops by up to 25%.

A different Princeton study found that moderately paced speakers were rated 20% more trustworthy than people who talked too fast or too slow.

Slowing down also forces you to be more deliberate with your words, and pauses become emphasis.

The smartest people in any room are the ones who make complicated things sound simple.

The easiest way to lose an audience is to keep talking after you’ve already made the point.

Let's pretend you're selling Claude or ChatGPT to someone who's never used AI before. You could explain how large language models work, how they process tokens, and how they're trained on massive datasets. And there’s a good chance your prospect will nod politely and forget everything you said before the sentence is over.

Or you could just say, "Paste in a job description and it writes you five personalized outreach emails in 30 seconds. Try it." They get it immediately. They understand the benefit. And you can move on.

Experts simplify topics. And people like to buy from experts.

Stories sell. Like, really, really well.

The best communicators always have a handful of go-to stories they can pull out in different situations. Watch any good podcaster, and you'll notice they tell the same story across dozens of episodes. They do this because they understand that stories are the best way to get their point across.

Pick 2 or 3 real stories from your experience. Could be a customer who saw a specific result or a deal that almost fell apart, or a time your product solved something unexpected.

Having stories ready means you don’t have to scramble for an example on the spot, and you’ll leave a lasting impression on everyone you tell it to.

TLDR: Drop the hedge words, slow down, simplify, and let a handful of good stories do the heavy lifting.

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.