Persuasion and Sales Mastery: Silence

I've worked with hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of sales reps over the years and one thing I find common is that as people we can be like the story of Goldilocks and the 3 bears, too hot or too cold, and there is definitely a temperature that is just right. One of the ingredients in creating a story where things are 'just right" involves the simple yet often quite challenging skill of not talking. Yes, I know you're in sales, but not talking is an incredible skill when used at the proper time.

Like the image above, too often conversations and sales meetings have a lot more tension than there needs to be. A great sales meeting should be like a sudden-death tennis match between two friends where the ball is moving back and forth and everyone is enjoying it and we all know someone needs to score at some point but let's enjoy the flow until we get to scoring. What many sales meetings unfortunately are like is one person trying to hammer 200mph serves onto the stripe with every single statement or swing. Sure you might score some points but if both people don't enjoy the process and both people don't get something out of it then is the "Winner" really winning anything? No. Because if the prospective client overpowers the salesperson they may miss out on a great product and if the salesperson overpowers the prospective client they may leave without a deal. So how do we do this dance? Well there's several factors, but one of the most simple and powerful is learning when to _ _ _ _, or "be silent and listen."

"But Derek I MUST educate the client about my product, people just don't seem to understand!" Yeah I get it. Have you ever considered maybe they don't understand because you word and idea vomit all over them and they don't have time to process what you've said? Here are examples of times where silence helped me generate thousands of dollars in monthly and annual revenue and profit.

One time when I was taking care of my grandma she snagged my keys and went for a joy ride and I had an appointment to be to. I Ubered over there (and chased down grandma after, story for another day). When I walked in I had been taught to always keep second appointments simple and concise, so I said hello and went right into asking to write up the advertising campaign. After I asked there was a long silence. Now I know most of the time it "feels" long but it's maybe 10-30 seconds at THE MOST of silence. Well I'm confident in this case it was well over the 20 second mark. We had to be approaching an actual eternity (45 seconds? 60??). I sat there smiling at him and he kept looking down at the paper and then back at me. Finally he said... "Ugghhh...sooo?" And I smiled back and said "oh, I thought you were thinking." He laughed. I laughed. I stayed silent. He said "ok let's do it" I said "great, excited to work with you" and reached across to shake his hand and got the paperwork started.

The entire process from walking into his office to pulling out the contract was maybe 4-7 minutes and a majority of the time was spent in silence. The deal was around $850/month and my business was already profitable at this point so that was around an extra $680/month in income for me and +$8,160 in annual income. All because I knew when to smile and be quiet. Obviously there was other work going into it, but I have seen a lot of people put in the other work only to completely botch the patience and silence part.

Example 2, I'm sitting with one of the top real estate agents in the county. I present 3 options to her, then ask which one would be best for her business. Now this one is tricky because she not so quietly said "well this one ...xyz..." and "this one xyz... but I wonder what about this..." and I realized, SHE WAS NOT asking me, she was talking to herself. I talk to myself sometimes so I get it. I immediately realized my job here was to let her talk to herself because it sounded like she was going to converse aloud about her thoughts and then give me a decision. That is exactly what happened here. She bought a 3 year service agreement from me that again equaled a substantial annual increase in my income, added someone new to my client list, and she ended up passing referrals and many other great things to me while I worked with her in that area. Again, all because I knew when to sit back and not talk, and listen.

When should you not be silent? Depends on what the objective is for the moment. Did you just ask them a question? Be silent. Wait for them to process, think, and respond. No matter how long it takes or feels like it takes. Did you just share new information? If you're steering towards a specific marker such as signing an agreement or scheduling a firm time to meet someone, don't just say something that sounds great then sit there, follow it up with a question that advances towards the desired outcome.

Remember, being great at sales is not about you and what you want and your high IQ or infinite knowledge - lots of people have those things sorry to break it to you. It's about communicating in a way that the other person likes you, likes what you do, and understands enough to agree to do business with you. Nothing more and nothing less. I really don't even care if someone completely understands my product, I just want them to feel confident they understand enough of what I'm saying to do business with me. Kind of get it? Enough to sign here? Works for me. We can educate further and reeducate down the road, especially if we just signed a long-term service agreement. Plenty of time.

Have you ever ruined a sales meeting or anything from talking too much? Share it in the comments, maybe we can all laugh about it together. Have you ever closed a great deal because you managed to calm your internal dialogue and let things unfold without interrupting? Feel free to share that in the comments as well.

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