During training, I often say that the biggest difference between good and bad salespeople is that good ones maintain consistent logic and methods when describing the same thing, regardless of time, place, or audience, while bad ones vary greatly depending on mood. I'm not a rigid person, nor do I like to follow rules, as anyone who has worked with me knows. But in my over ten years in sales, I've felt that in store visits, especially for frontline salespeople, without strict control and optimization of sales behavior and language, and without deliberate reinforcement day after day, relying only on insight and luck, a salesperson's growth rate will be at least halved. The common mistakes salespeople make in speech are not limited to the ten phrases mentioned in this article, but these ten are more insidious in their logic. First: "Boss! How's business lately?" Many salespeople start their routine store visits with this phrase, thinking it's a casual greeting that can bridge the distance with the store owner. But the biggest problem with this sentence is that it's a summary question, like asking and answering yourself. No matter how the other person responds, it feels redundant and can easily lead to an awkward silence. In practice, if a salesperson asks this, the owner might either give a blank "Not bad" or ignore them entirely. Whether it's a familiar or new visit, this isn't the best opener. For familiar customers, asking this shows you didn't do your homework before entering the store, not even studying the store's inventory data, which is disrespectful to both them and yourself. For new visits, asking about business right away is too forward; some things are better left unsaid until you know each other better. For familiar customers, it's better to start with a non-business topic or get straight to the point: "Boss Zhao, last month you were short by 20,000 on your new product order, which cost me my bonus. I'm not leaving until I get a free lunch from you today!" For new customers, instead of asking about business, it's better to go into the store, act humble, and ask for a glass of water, which gives you more time and opportunity to sit down and chat with the target customer. Second: "You can't put other people's products in our display area!" For certain exclusive or brand-specific displays, salespeople often find that dealers have placed other brands' products in their designated area. Strong-brand salespeople might directly point out that the dealer shouldn't do this or that, while weak-brand salespeople tend to turn a blind eye. It's important to note that unless it's a direct operation, the dealer has the final say on how to display products in their store. Even if the manufacturer provides some decoration subsidies, compared to annual rents of hundreds of thousands in some places, it's a drop in the bucket. If other brands' products appear in your display area, it's either because your product category is less competitive in that region, or because your daily maintenance of the category hasn't been consistent. When competitors' products appear in your display area, the salesperson should never accuse the dealer with "You can't put other brands here!" The wisest response is to "do" rather than "say." In my early days leading salespeople in areca nut distribution, we provided counters and shelves to stores, and often found other brands' areca nuts placed on them. Areca nuts are often impulse purchases, so the more front-facing the brand, the more likely it's bought. Also, since areca nuts are FMCG, they're usually displayed in street-facing stores and counters, so they accumulate dust. Some smart salespeople, every time they enter a small store, first grab a cloth and chat with the owner while wiping the dust off each pack of areca nuts on the shelf, subtly rearranging the order. Before leaving, they'd remind the owner: "The cleaner the product, the better it sells. Remember to wipe the dust often!" Third: "Don't tell anyone, but this month I'll get you some special policies if you help me meet the target!" End-of-month and end-of-year stock pressure is a nightmare for many salespeople and dealers. In my early days in regional sales, my phone never stopped for 24 hours on the last day of the month or year, so hot it burned my ear, all calls about pushing stock and meeting targets. Having dinner before 9 PM was a luxury. Some salespeople often use special policies and verbal promises to exchange for sales volume. I want to say that using special policies to boost sales is at least immature in sales thinking. First, there's no such thing as a secret; favoring some dealers over others not only makes those who met targets feel cheated, but also makes the favored dealers think, "This guy can always get special policies, so he probably does the same for others. Good thing I held out, or I'd have missed out." Second, the "promotion dependency" where sales only happen with promotions often forms this way. For dealers who won't stock without policies, using special policies to get sales is like drinking poison to quench thirst; the pit only gets deeper, and the dealer drifts further from the manufacturer. For brands with healthy market sales, it might be better to ignore those dealers who refuse to stock without policies, give them no policies, reduce visits, and apply external pressure to make them reflect. If they fail to meet targets for three consecutive months, many dealers know what that means. For new brands, if a few dealers use their sales volume as leverage, you definitely shouldn't give them policies. Instead, give more resources and policies to those who proactively meet targets, using them as models to drive the laggards. Fourth: "I'll come back another day (next time) to visit you!" Many salespeople, when leaving a store, casually say this as a polite goodbye. It seems polite but is actually full of hidden dangers. Think about it: when you say this to a dealer, how much do either of you really take it to heart? Some might say it's just a polite phrase, and whether or when to visit next time depends on the situation. So putting it in the list of ten wrong phrases seems too picky. But I need to remind salespeople that if this were a casual phrase between friends, it'd be fine, but in a business visit, it's a closing remark that is, to some extent, a commercial commitment. In a sales visit, what does a dealer remember most? The first thing said, the last thing said, and the response to what's most important to them. As the last thing you say, a vague "visit another day" leaves the dealer with two impressions: one, don't take this guy seriously; he's just saying it; two, who knows when he'll show up again, and he doesn't have anything important anyway. That's why many companies now implement SOP for store visits—to eliminate unplanned visits, constrain salesperson behavior, and keep dealers informed. So the standard usage should be: "Boss Zhao, my next visit will be around [date] to [date]. I'll call ahead to confirm. I'll also give you a definite answer on the expense reimbursement you mentioned. I'll be going now, so I won't disturb you further!" 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