Brian Sullivan
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The Sale in Silence
Smashing two dangerous sales myths.
Myth No. 1: Teaching customers is more important than learning.
"A good listener is not only popular everywhere but after a while he knows something."
- Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)
American playwright
While your thoughts and opinions are important in a sales call, they are not nearly as important as the thoughts and the opinions of your prospects. Before you ever meet with a prospect, you already know what you know (please excuse the Yogi Berra-ism while I make my point). Do you believe that learning something from your prospect is important? Well if so, how much can you learn while you’re talking? (Not much!) Remember that to be PRECISE means saying only what the customer wants to hear. You cannot do this unless you know what the customer is thinking and feeling. Love their thoughts and opinions more than yours. If you do this, you will find that they will often love your thoughts and opinions even more than you do.
Never talk just for the sake of talking, but always listen for the sake of learning.
Myth No. 2: Silence shows weakness.
"Under all speech that is good for anything there
lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time. "
- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)
Scottish Essayist and Historian at 86.
Make silence part of your sales call. Silence shows strength, wisdom and confidence. Some of the most influential people in history have used silence as a tool to stir action. Consider everything your prospect says in silence, and don’t respond until you are sure that what you are going to say will be exact and sharply defined. While you are pondering your response, don’t talk. Just think in silence until you feel confident that what you say next will be pure poetry.
Believe me, I understand just how difficult this can be. Silence for me used to be the equivalent of Chinese water torture. I hated any of it in my early selling days. You see, I have a God given ability to speak too much. I get so pumped in a sales call that I sometimes find myself making too many assumptions, too many statements, and feeling the need to fill every moment of silence with the painful sound of my own voice. Trust me, I can inflict pain when my sales game is not "on."
Embrace silence
Silence prevents you from interrupting, and it prevents you from saying something you wish you hadn’t.
Have you ever interrupted somebody and said something that you wish you could take back two seconds after you said it? We all have. To prevent myself from interrupting the person I am speaking to, and to prevent myself from saying something stupid, I have a quirky little system that makes it easier for me to let people finish what they are saying.
I wait until the person that I am speaking with completely finishes talking, and then I identify the last word he said. I then pause for a moment in silence and repeat that word in my mind. This exercise helps me focus on what the person is saying and forces me to listen until the very end. Then and only then am I allowed to think about what was said, work out my response, and then use the least amount of words possible to respond. This prevents me from interrupting people, and while on the job, prevents me from cutting off customers.
The same technique works when I am teaching sales. My classes are interactive, and I encourage involvement. Regardless of what industry or what part of the world I am teaching, many of the same questions and areas of concern are expressed. My natural tendency is to jump in, head them off at the pass, and try to impress them with my mind reading abilities by responding to their question or comment even before they finish. By trying to identify the very last word they said, I am forced to let them finish their thoughts. And by taking a few seconds of silence before responding, I am forced to reflect on the meaning behind their words. This ensures that my response will be meaningful and PRECISE.
Practice with family members
The way we listen at home is even more important than the way we listen at work. Do you want to know if you are a good listener? Ask your husband, wife, brother, sister, mother, father, son or daughter what they think. When you ask them, focus on their response. Drop everything you are doing, look them in the eye, and listen to every word they say. While they are telling you the way they feel, DON’T INTERRUPT them. Let them finish talking, repeat their last word in your mind, and then take a few seconds to think about what they said. For this exercise, you need not respond when they are through. Just smile, maybe give them a little nod, and be done with it. You’ll be amazed at how difficult it is to not interrupt. Again, listen until the very last word spoken; and then identify that word. Use silence to help you think about what was said.
You’ll also be impressed by how much you learned from their response. Practice these skills, and use them while serving customers. While your competition is blabbing, interrupting, and telling everybody how great they and their company are, you will be communicating in a way that shows them you care more about serving them than selling them. [FI]
Brian Sullivan is author of "20 Days to the Top" and president of PRECISE Selling.
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