Imagine a 5 year old. Let’s call him Tom.

Tom needs to be looked after as his mother has to work and you agreed to help out for a couple of hours after school.

Now, Tom is a typical 5 year old. He wants to play soccer. He wants to go to the park and climb trees. He’s been in school all day, and yet he has enough energy to keep Greater London in power for the month of June.

You, on the other hand, are tired from a hard day of endless phone calls and email attacks. She would love to sit down and watch the latest children’s DVD together. After all, it looks like rain and you don’t feel like getting wet.

What is your job? Do you spend the next ten minutes explaining that the wind is picking up and the way the cumulus nimbuses are forming means there’s a definite chance of heavy precipitation?

Or do you start selling the DVD option like a used car salesman trying to sell a hatchback coupe to a couple looking for a car with a trunk for their two English Sheepdogs?

Whether you have children of your own or not, common sense tells you that when communicating with a 5-year-old, you should use simple language and be very clear in your requests.

And that’s why I like to compare communication with potential clients to communication with children.

If a 5-year-old can’t grasp the concept of what your business is all about, then there’s a good chance your prospect, who knows nothing about you and your business, won’t either.

These are my top tips for treating your customers like children.

1. Avoid all jargon. There is a great danger that when we live and breathe our businesses, we tend to adopt the language and abbreviations of that business. This is especially true for technical based companies and NLP professionals, for example.

Would you know what the web-based CRM interface really is, let alone how it could benefit your business? And how the heck does the average person on the street know how to define neuro-linguistic programming? Or life coaching for that matter?

A quick note on abbreviations: It’s just plain rude to assume your potential customers know what TLAs are. (answer at the bottom to find out what it means!!)

two. Use plain language. Okay, you need to speak your customers’ language, but using the best part of a thesaurus on your website’s home page can seem exceptionally pretentious. Worse yet, if your reader has to pick up a dictionary to understand what he has written, no rapport is going to be built, right?

3. Never patronize. Use language that is too simple and your potential customer may take offense if they are treated like someone who is missing a sandwich for a picnic. Going back to Tom, he would no doubt take offense if he was badmouthed and may reward you with a kick in the shins for treating him like a baby.

Four. Avoid using negative language. Tom carries a glass of milk across the room and you tell him “Don’t drop the glass.” What do you think will happen? Yes, there’s a good chance Tom will drop his glass. Our brains can’t process the negatives, so we just leave them out.

Think of commonly used phrases like “Don’t delay. Don’t miss out on this special offer.” Yes, that is correct. There is a higher chance that your prospect will be late. It’s much better to use “Reserve Now. Reserve your copy today.”

Another phrase I see a lot is “Please feel free to contact me.” Rephrasing to “Contact me anytime, I’d love to hear from you” is much more appealing, isn’t it?

5. Be very clear in your requests. You would never take Tom to a busy street and let him cross alone. She couldn’t afford to risk assuming he might be street smart enough to look for cars before crossing.

So when you reach out to your prospects, whether it’s a personal email, ad, or direct mail, always be specific with your call to action.

“Call me at 001 234 5678 before Friday at 12 noon if you want to benefit from this 20% discount”

“Please email [email protected] before the end of the day to reserve your spot.”

Never assume that your prospect will know what to do. Be specific and clear and your customer will thank you for making it so easy for them.

6. Reward with lots of praise and treats. OK, Tom may be motivated by Smarties and his leads may not be. But they are the same principles. Rewarding your customers with a simple “Thank you” or “I really appreciate your business” is just as valuable for building relationships as ongoing discount coupons and referral rewards.

PS TLA is short for three-letter acronym. Um, annoying right? :0)

© Karen Skidmore, 2009