How To Master Your Tone For Sales
In a previous post, we talked about Mehrabian’s “7-38-55” rule and why the tone of your voice is an important part of selling (especially over the phone).
But practical advice on this topic is often lacking. Too many sales managers give their reps feedback on tone without helpful resources to back it up.
In this post, we’ve included notated musical staves to show the effect on the sales encounter when tone is used in different ways. There are also video links at the bottom of the post so you can listen to sales professionals as they demonstrate their mastery of tone.
We’ll focus on three main parts of tone:
- The tempo of your words (fast or slow)
- The pitch of your voice (high or low)
- The volume at which you speak (loud or soft)
All of these, together, comprise the non-verbal part of your communication on a phone call.
Tempo
A fast tempo is like electronic dance music, it gets you excited. It seems like you’re building up to something and you want to keep moving forward.
There is one main part of any sales encounter where you want to have a fast tempo, and that’s when you’re pitching. This is the perfect time for your prospect to be getting excited about your product. This is also a time when you want to raise your volume.
A slow tempo is like smooth jazz, it calms you down. You feel like you can lean back in your chair and relax and mull over your thoughts.
A part of the sales encounter where you want to maintain a slow tempo is when you’re handling objections. During this part of the call, your prospect is usually trying to rush off the phone (especially if they think they’ve made up their mind that they’re not going to buy).
As a result, your prospect will start to talk fast:
“I don’t know … I can’t really think about this right now … Can you just call me tomorrow?”
If you start talking fast right along with them, then the encounter will spiral out of your control, like a snowball rolling downhill and gaining speed.
Instead, if you begin to talk with a slower tempo, this will have a calming effect on your prospect, and they may be willing to stay on the phone a little longer.
Pitch
A high pitch (tenor, flute) is sweet and whimsical.
It’s hard to get mad at someone when they’re using a high pitch. For this reason, you can use a higher pitch when you’re joking with your prospect, building rapport, or being sarcastic.
A low pitch (bass, drum) is more direct and commanding.
It’s very helpful for establishing control over a conversation. A lower pitch is most useful when you want to come across as confident and convicted, reasonable and thoughtful, or when you want to show your prospect that you care and that you truly understand where they’re coming from.
On the topic of pitch, it’s also important to be conscious of upspeak and downspeak.
Upspeak occurs when your pitch increases as you approach the end of a sentence or a word.
This is typically used by a speaker to indicate that they are asking a question.
If you are asking a question, say, during qualifying, then upspeak might be helpful to signal non-verbally to your prospect that it is their turn to respond with an answer.
One, often unintentional, side effect of upspeak is that the speaker seems like they are unsure of what they are saying. For this reason, it’s very important to avoid upspeak during a part of the sales conversation when you want to be inspiring belief in your prospect. Instead, use downspeak as a more convincing tone.
Downspeak is the opposite of upspeak. It occurs when your pitch bends downwards as you approach the end of a sentence or a word.
Use downspeak when you are pitching or answering your prospect’s questions with confidence.
Volume
Loud volume usually goes along with a fast tempo when you’re building excitement.
Loud volume should be used sparingly during rapport building (e.g., when you’re laughing loudly at your prospect’s jokes) or when you’re pitching, saying something like:
“THIS is what sets us apart from our competitors.”
At any other time, you risk sounding like you’re trying to “bulldoze” or talk over your prospect.
Especially if your prospect has a soft volume, make sure to bring your volume down to match theirs.
Soft volume usually goes with a slow tempo when you’re speaking with calm sincerity.
It’s a bit like telling a secret. You know that the information you have is valuable.
A particularly good time to talk with a soft volume is when you’re offering a discount:
“This is actually the deal we had running last month, [pause here] but I talked with my manager [pause here] and she told me that we can extend it for one more day.”
It should almost sound like you have your hand over the receiver on your phone and you’re talking quietly so that not even your co-workers can hear you.
The right tone for different parts of the sales encounter
| Tempo | Pitch | Volume | |
| Building Rapport | Tone-matching | Tone-matching | Tone-matching |
| Qualifying | Medium | High | Soft |
| Pitching | Fast | Low | Loud |
| Handling Objections | Slow | Low | Soft |
Tone for Building Rapport
When the sales encounter first begins, you should be building rapport.
In order to achieve this, you want to be matching your prospect’s tone as best as you can.
This is because we want to avoid any possible friction at the beginning of the call. You want your prospect to think, “Hey, this person is like me.”
Studies show that people like other people who are like themselves.
Once you are both speaking in harmony, then you can start to adjust your tone to see if your prospect will follow along.
Tone for Qualifying
Notice how the notes are higher on the staff and slightly spread out—higher pitch and medium tempo.
*The word ‘you’ should be said with louder volume and slightly higher pitch to emphasize that we are interested in hearing what our prospect thinks, as opposed to what anybody else thinks.
Tone for Pitching
Notice how the notes are lower on the staff and closer together—lower pitch and faster tempo.
*The word ‘this’ should be said with louder volume and slightly lower pitch to draw our prospect’s attention to this feature, this opportunity, THIS.
Tone for Handling Objections
Tone for handling objections is a little more complicated. Generally, your tempo is slow, pitch is low, and volume is soft. This will have a calming effect on your prospect, so they are less likely to rush off the phone.
But there is a certain technique of push-and-pull that requires you to change your tone back-and-forth, from high pitch and soft volume when asking a question, to lower pitch and louder volume when you see an opportunity to re-sell value.
Summary
Now, we’ve reviewed the three main parts of tone:
- The tempo of your words
- The pitch of your voice
- The volume at which you speak
And the appropriate tones for each part of the sales encounter:
- Qualifying: medium tempo, high pitch, soft volume
- Pitching: fast tempo, low pitch, loud volume
- Objection-handling: slow tempo, low pitch, soft volume
Here are videos of sales professionals demonstrating their mastery of tone so you can actually hear how the different tonalities sound: