I recently spotted @Andy Black mention "Silence in sales" and thought I'd share my 2 cents.
My sales mentor was a 65-year-old Scottish bloke called Mark. In between drinking and swearing, he was a god damn wizard at closing. Honestly, when I first met him I was inspired at how he controlled the conversation and took prospects in a pre-planned direction.
One of the first things he taught me was the "STFU Close". In reality, it's not the best name for the sales technique. As once you understand how to implement it into a conversation effectively, you'll find yourself throwing it into pitches at very odd times, not just when closing.
You'll hear a lot of sales guru's tell you the customer should speak more than you during a pitch. While I agree having a conversation with a customer is much better than spitting out a pitch without grabbing a breath of air, I argue you should be doing more than just throwing questions at a prospect to get them talking. With no real rhythm or direction to the conversation, you'll find yourself struggling on when to pull the trigger and when to go in for the kill with a close.
Injecting silence into a conversation at integral points can dictate where the conversation flows.
I've always thought sales was about getting info out of a prospect, not just any info but specifically their concerns and objections as to why they can't make a decision to buy what you're selling, right now.
We've all been there, you have a customer interested but you just "feel" if you try and close it's going to be a NO. You know there is something you're missing, an objection they have that you just need to find and address, to secure the sale.
Pre offering objections to a customer before you close can be risky, planting bad seeds into their mind before you start to close them, in a last-ditch effort to qualify them, ends with you blowing out customers who are ready to buy.
Silence allows prospects to voice their real concerns and objections during the closing process. Be forward, ask them a question and then go silent, force a direction.
When you have addressed any niggling points you think might hinder in the closing process use silent pauses to emphasize the points of your offer, make sure they understand the importance of where the value is with your product or service.
Next time you're pitching someone, and you feel like you've been talking for a couple seconds longer than you maybe should have been, just stop. The pause will re-engage your prospect and bring their focus back to you. This is probably the most difficult part of sales in my opinion. I was fairly lucky to have a good enough mentor that when he noticed I was going into "robot pitch mode" he would either kick the back of my foot or give me a "STFU" look from across the room. After a while, I learnt to self-analyze while I was pitching and now I consciously look out for this common trope.
My sales mentor was a 65-year-old Scottish bloke called Mark. In between drinking and swearing, he was a god damn wizard at closing. Honestly, when I first met him I was inspired at how he controlled the conversation and took prospects in a pre-planned direction.
One of the first things he taught me was the "STFU Close". In reality, it's not the best name for the sales technique. As once you understand how to implement it into a conversation effectively, you'll find yourself throwing it into pitches at very odd times, not just when closing.
You'll hear a lot of sales guru's tell you the customer should speak more than you during a pitch. While I agree having a conversation with a customer is much better than spitting out a pitch without grabbing a breath of air, I argue you should be doing more than just throwing questions at a prospect to get them talking. With no real rhythm or direction to the conversation, you'll find yourself struggling on when to pull the trigger and when to go in for the kill with a close.
Injecting silence into a conversation at integral points can dictate where the conversation flows.
I've always thought sales was about getting info out of a prospect, not just any info but specifically their concerns and objections as to why they can't make a decision to buy what you're selling, right now.
We've all been there, you have a customer interested but you just "feel" if you try and close it's going to be a NO. You know there is something you're missing, an objection they have that you just need to find and address, to secure the sale.
Pre offering objections to a customer before you close can be risky, planting bad seeds into their mind before you start to close them, in a last-ditch effort to qualify them, ends with you blowing out customers who are ready to buy.
Silence allows prospects to voice their real concerns and objections during the closing process. Be forward, ask them a question and then go silent, force a direction.
When you have addressed any niggling points you think might hinder in the closing process use silent pauses to emphasize the points of your offer, make sure they understand the importance of where the value is with your product or service.
Next time you're pitching someone, and you feel like you've been talking for a couple seconds longer than you maybe should have been, just stop. The pause will re-engage your prospect and bring their focus back to you. This is probably the most difficult part of sales in my opinion. I was fairly lucky to have a good enough mentor that when he noticed I was going into "robot pitch mode" he would either kick the back of my foot or give me a "STFU" look from across the room. After a while, I learnt to self-analyze while I was pitching and now I consciously look out for this common trope.
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