The Silent Customer

Ask a salesperson his worst nightmare and “the silent customer” is likely to figure right at the top. These are the poker-faced prospects who rarely give a reaction throughout a sales pitch making it nigh impossible for you to find out what they are thinking. Most of the times, its scary. Especially those eyes. Pure mindf**k. In such situations, how do you plan your next move?

Lets examine a few standard situations.

[Note: Situations described below are more apt for medium to high-consideration products / services where there is room for negotiation. Not apt for low-consideration or impulse purchases.]

Prospect having a bad day

He might have had an argument with his wife that morning or his colleague got promoted out of turn while he did not. The usual giveaway in this situation is a silent yet distracted person. You might see him constantly staring at his phone, messaging someone interspersed with deep sighs, rubbing of the forehead. Eye contact will be rare. You’ll know it.

Move: Ask him whether this is a good time to talk. If not, ask for another appropriate time.

Bad move: Proceed with the pitch. But he’s not absorbing anything. Your loss.

Really bad move: Try to comfort him especially if you haven’t built that kind of rapport yet. Mostly backfires.

The introverted personality

You will observe a silent onlooker but he is unlikely to be distracted or fidgeting with his phone. Introverts don’t talk much but aren’t unfriendly either. They rarely make small talk but push the right buttons and you will see them open up. They respond to some stimulus which usually tend to be topics they deeply care about.

Move: Its better to get straight to the point with introverts. They are likely to give pointed answers as well. They rarely beat about the bush and you shouldn’t either.

The master negotiator

These guys have been there, done that. They deal with several salespeople like you and know all the standard tricks up your sleeve. If you feel you can sweet talk your way into a deal?—?bad news. These prospects are well aware that salespeople look for verbal and visual cues to plan their moves. Under such circumstances, silence is a deadly weapon.

This is the situation where its useful to figure out what stage of the buying process the prospect is in. A prospect’s body language reflects it?—?sometimes overtly, other times covertly. Example, if the prospect has already made up his mind about finalizing another vendor, expect a short meeting with no questions.

If the prospect is still in the outreach or collaboration phase, you are unlikely to strike a deal immediately. So its best to probe the customer about whether they need any information about your product. From their questions or responses, you’ll be able to figure that they still don’t have complete knowledge about the product. Its time to educate. The more you educate, the more likely they are to open up to you with conversation. Give a demo if needed. Discuss case studies of how people use your service (not benefits and cost). Avoid moving to the proposal stage till the client is fully educated about the product and how to use it.

If the prospect is in the selection, negotiation or purchase phase, then the situation is slightly more complex to handle. The prospect is in the meeting with an intent to get closure. And those who have experienced it first hand would know that negotiation rarely starts in the middle of a meeting?—?it starts way before you even arrive for the meeting or right from the time the meeting starts. The more vocal customers usually negotiate by finding faults in your product right from the word go, how it doesn’t match their requirement and how awesome the competitor’s product is. On the other hand, the silent prospect has a more potent weapon?—?silence (duh). At this point, how do you get them to speak?

I’ll share what I normally do. In my experience, a prospect doesn’t give an appointment to any salesperson unless they are really interested in the product. The intention in this phase is to get maximum value (read freebies) at minimum price. Since freebies or price is on their mind and that’s what they want to talk about, I usually…

…walk into the trap.

The trap in this case is to observe silence till the salesperson breaks down and gives a counter offer. Once that happens, the prey is ready to be eaten by the predator. However, I’ve not walked into the trap to get eaten alive. I’ve just walked in a few steps to wake up the beast (pardon the crude reference) and draw him out. The idea is to flirt but not propose.

There are 2 ways in which I normally flirt.

(a) Not budge on the price. Keep the conversation going but with no intention to end the meeting. This has proven less effective for me.

(b) Budge on the price slightly but with the condition of something in return for the discount (better payment terms?). This is a sign of hope for the buyer. It tends to draw them out. In case of the silent customer, it gets them to speak. If I hold my ground long enough, I’ve seen the best of negotiators give in, even the silent ones.

Having said this, this still remains one of the toughest situations for a salesman. I would recommend that enough negotiation margin and allowances be made for such situations.

All the best for drawing out the beast.