The traditional salesperson relies on word crutches to help push them through a sale, but here at CharTec, we like to refer to these unnecessary crutches as Killer Fillers.

A Killer Filler is nothing more than word vomit, and with each spew of the mouth, your credibility takes a hit and your potential takes a vicious beating.

But what exactly are Killer Fillers?

These word props can take many forms, but here are a few for you:

Awesome.

Absolutely.

That’s great.

Perfect.

Cool.

After seeing a few of these, you might be wondering what the big deal is, especially when you consider just how often you probably use these words on a daily basis.  But before you completely write off this post, I want you to try something.

Think back to the last time someone used these words on you.  What were you talking about, and how did you feel once you were done speaking and this person responded to you?  Was the respondent slightly off-base or even borderline self-serving?  And did you feel like this person disregarded parts of what you said to them?

Odds are, you probably didn’t feel good, they were off base, and they clearly disregarded portions of your dialogue.  Not a great way to start of a potential sales pitch, right?

When a person uses Killer Fillers within a conversation, it’s obvious this person isn’t completely listening to what you’re saying, and this becomes even more obvious when they respond inappropriately to what you’ve said to them.  These word crutches are commonly used by people to quickly fill in conversational gaps so they can stop actively listening.

Instead of listening to what the speaker is saying, the listener has started to think about what they want to say next and how they can mold the conversation to fit into their needs more.  But this is a mistake.

Avoid using Killer Fillers and actively listen to a speaker throughout the entire conversation.  Don’t ever allow a “perfect” or “awesome” to slip out of your mouth unless it’s absolutely necessary.  And if you’re listening like you should be, this slip should never be necessary.