Silence Shows Respect after Asking a Question
By John Aberle | heart-centered , Sales Calls , Soft Sell
In the early years of attending sales training seminars, one of the dramatic effects sales trainers, especially with a large audience would try for would be to tell us, “When you ask a question,” then they would pause for a moment and follow that by yelling, “SHUT UP!” They would continue with this cliché, “He who speaks first loses.”
If you’ve read any of my blog posts about heart-centered, soft sell sales, by now you should recognize that as a hard sell attitude. It’s all about control and a win-lose philosophy of sales. Nevertheless, today, I’m going to tell you something similar but from a different perspective.
Be quiet or shut up – what’s the difference?
When you ask a question, be quiet until your prospect or customer answers. So other than the fact that I chose to avoid saying, “shut up,” what’s the difference? The difference is respect.
It’s respectful to allow the other person time to think about what you asked. I know when someone asks me a question, I need to think about the answer for a few minutes. If you interrupt me while I’m thinking, obviously the question wasn’t important so I’ll pass on it. That meeting may then be over.
In this respect, you did lose, twice. Continue reading