Christian PolkYour Friendly Neighborhood Sales Trainer

How to stop saying 'uhm' and sounding stupid 🗿

5 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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1:28

In this short instructional video, Christian Polk discusses the negative impact of filler words like "um" and "ah" on how a speaker is perceived, especially in professional settings. He argues that unnecessary fillers can make a speaker appear less competent, while strategic pauses and confident body language convey authority. Polk offers practical techniques: deliberately pausing to think, using body language to buy time, and repeating a phrase to recover from a mistake. He also emphasizes that the appropriateness of fillers depends on context—early in a one‑on‑one sales call a brief "um" can humanize the speaker and lower a prospect’s guard, but later in the conversation, especially during presentations or group leadership moments, fillers should be eliminated to maintain conviction and credibility. The video blends direct admonition with nuanced advice, encouraging viewers to tailor their speech habits to the situation while generally aiming to reduce filler usage.

Chapters

If I say, what's 2 2? And you go, um, 4, you look dumb. If I say, what's 2 2? And you go, 4, you look smart. The um makes you look like an idiot. Stop saying um, stop saying ah. You need a pause to think. So what I will do is I will either literally take a pause and stop. A lot of that is body language to allow yourself to be given the time to do that. Well, the second thing I'll do if I make a mistake is I'll repeat myself. So I'll say something like, as an example, so I'll say, so I'll say. That sounds better than going, so I'll say, um.
Top G. Fucking idiot. So this is true in like some regards. A lot of it is just going to depend on the setting. So if you're talking and you're really wanting to gain a lot of authority and have a lot of a presence, you do want to take ums and ahs out of it, especially if you're in a one-on-one sales environment when you are presenting, when you should be sounding confident, convicted, you're telling them about what you have. You shouldn't be bumbling around. But at the very beginning of the conversation, when you want to come across more human, having an um or ah in there isn't going to make much of a difference in terms of you being able to have a good conversation. So all just depends on the context. If you're talking to a group, for example, like he is talking to right there, or you're wanting to really have a lot of leadership for the people around you, taking those things out, good. But in some one-to-one sales environments, especially very early on in the call when you want to lower their guard, having some ums or ahs where you do speak a little bit more like a layman makes sense. Don't have it later in the call when you're supposed to be more convicted and have more conviction to get people across the line. But earlier in the call can be okay.