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After you ask for the business..... SHUT UP!

Written by: Richard Mulvey

Article Overview: There are few rules in selling that apply to all sales, but this is one of them. If you learn this as a new technique today you will close more sales tommorow.

After you ask for the business..... SHUT UP!

Once you “Pop the Question” or ask for the business there is only one thing to do.

“SHUT UP”

Say nothing. Let the silence weigh heavy in the air. The first person to speak loses. This may take 10 Seconds or it may take 30, it does not matter. Make sure you are not the first person to say anything.

The psychology here is very simple. As the salesperson you have built the customer up over the last few minutes. You have uncovered all of his needs and you have offered your benefits to satisfy those needs.

The Customer has been convinced by your offer and is letting you know by demonstrating buying signals. You get excited so you summarise the benefits and ask "The Question" knowing that he will give you a positive answer and then there is silence because the customer is thinking about it.

There is no problem for the first few seconds of silence and you spend that time thinking how you will spend the commission but then the silence drags on for 6 seconds and you start to panic. Your mind is buzzing with all the things you have forgotten to tell the customer. After 10 seconds silence you can not stand the pressure and you blurt out some feature or other and blow the sale.

Do Not Panic ................... The first person to talk loses.

This may sound easy on paper but it is not. The problem is that we sales people like the sound of our own voices, in fact we were probably pushed into sales in the first place because we were good at talking. When it comes to silence there is an almost uncontrollable urge to fill the silence with conversation.

This is made worse when you are dealing with professionally trained buyers. Buyers know what happens when you ask for the business so they are trained to be quiet at this time too. This can lead to some interesting periods of silence!

If you ask the ‘question’ and the customer says nothing the salesman often feels the need to re-summarise the benefits or worse, add another feature that has not yet been mentioned. This route invariably ends up in disaster. When you have asked the ‘question’ keep silent. The first person to talk loses.

Try it with your next customer and see how difficult it is. Then try it with every customer and see how much of a difference it makes. You’ll never look back.

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