Power of Silence in Sales

Rob  00:08

All right, welcome back, everybody to The Slow Pitch. Today we’re going to talk a little bit about a powerful tool that I’ve learned over the years that works in a multitude of areas in your life. Okay, so it’s not just about sales in this case. But it’s also very helpful in sales. Let’s get started.

V/O  00:25

You’re listening to The Slow Pitch Podcast, a podcast about selling less and closing more.

Rob  00:33

So you may wonder, what is this powerful tool, and if you had any chance to do any reading of the description, or went to the show notes or anything like that, you’ll know what this item is. Now using this is going to be a little bit interesting. So it’s, it’s one of those things that you’re going to have to know when to use it. It’s not a space between words. Okay, so the what’s what this thing is, what this tool is that I like to use, when it’s appropriate is simply this.

Rob  01:06

So if you haven’t been sitting there waiting for what am I going to say next? That is the tool that will get people to pay attention to you a little bit more. So here’s, here’s what I mean, when you have silence in a conversation. Most times people cannot help themselves. But to fill that silence, what happens is, is they tend to feel like I need to say something.

Rob  01:27

This is very uncomfortable fact, when I had that little silence there. I’m sure you were like fumbling with your phone or fumbling with your whatever your podcast player was like, Is this supposed to be like this? Is it still playing? Did you check it to TV shuts off all of a sudden, or the the audio is quiet when you’re watching TV, and it’s playing in the background? And you know, you look at that that screen and you look and say what just happened?

Rob  01:47

There was an advertiser here not too long ago who used to when he advertised he would come on, you could see it the advertisement, there’d be words on the screen, but there would be no words, and there would be no sound, no music, no nothing, just dead silence. And it would catch me every time I would look at the TV and say something on my TV. And then I’d see the words and the words to describe what it is it was a car dealership, believe it or not. Now what car dealership do you know of that has a quiet advertisement, the power of their pause, the power of their silence was to me one of the most powerful advertising techniques that I’ve seen in a long time. Right?

Rob  02:22

So it’s works the same in sales. Let me give you an example. I had a meeting one time, it was like an attorney’s office a lot law office. And we were sitting there talking about some of the services that we were going through and and he was kind of like little bit pushing back on some of the things he asked for a better price. And he goes, Well, can you can you do a better price for me? And I said to him, I said, Well, boy, what if I can’t? And you know, he would say stuff like, you know, well, I just I’m looking for something a little bit better and more more cost effective for me, or I wanted to make sure that I had the under this number or I wanted to be a little less, you know, he was just making little comments.

Rob  02:56

And so when he was talking, I would stay quiet. And I listen, took a few notes. And when he finished the sentence, he looked at me like are you going to lower your price, like he was waiting for me to lower the price? And so my response to him was, and and he just kind of went? Well, that’s it. I just I was I was hoping to get a better price. And I said, Well, is there anything else? And he goes, Well, no. And they just stay quiet. And he goes well, alright, so you know, the thing is, is and he just starts talking like he started filling the silence.

Rob  03:31

He told me basically that, you know, I’ve been looking for somebody that can do this, I found somebody else, but they’re not as qualified. I interviewed another person, they couldn’t answer certain questions. And I feel like you’re kind of one of the best ones out there. I could tell, especially the ones that I interviewed. And I’m like, Oh, okay. And I said, Well, that’s nice. What else? I just stayed stayed quiet, right? And he said, Well, I feel like it’s totally worth that price. I mean, it’s a fair price, I get it. I was just hoping it’d be a little lower.

Rob  04:00

And I stayed quiet. And he goes, and so you know, if I could just get a lower maybe and I go well, I don’t know that I can I think this is when I look at what we’re doing. And what I need to do. This is as good as I can do. What happens now. And he’s like, You know what, this is a this is what I need, I need to do this. Let’s let’s let’s let’s do this. And I go “hold it, wait… You just told me you needed a lower price. And you were hesitant to start, why all of a sudden, are you willing to do that?” Like if you don’t think this is the right price for you? Why? Why would you? Why would you want to do that?

Rob  04:36

Because what I want to do is I want to make sure that he was making the right decision and he thought long and hard about making the decision to move forward. And if he said well, you know, if he said a response that was going to be Yeah, you know what, you’re right. It is a little higher or I can’t afford that. Then I would have gladly walked out of the office and shook his hand said thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Rob  04:56

But instead he said, No, no, here’s here’s the thing. When I put this money into this, I’m going to take it from this other component that we talked about. And we’re always gonna do that. And what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna, I’m gonna apply it to this, what we’re what we’re what we’re talking about. And I’m going to make this an investment into what I need. And by doing that, it’s going to, it’s going to return the results. I mean, you already told me that the things that you’ve done before has gotten the results that we that we need.

Rob  05:25

Now, what he said to me was, I already told him, but the cool part was, is he came up with that on his own in our conversation. So part of that conversation, was him rehashing things that he told me and how it was going to help him. But he thought it was it said it was our conversation that made that happen, right? So he made that decision on his own and more than I kind of pushed him back, the more that I realized, no, he’s he’s ready to go.

Rob  05:49

But you would not have gotten there or I would not have gotten there. If I didn’t use the power of a pause and not saying anything that quiet that silence. And just asking an open ended question meaning by asking the What else is there? Or is there anything else are very quietly prodding by doing that? And being quiet? He answered his own question. He made his own decisions. And in fact, he went on and made we made the sale because of that, the power of the pause, the power of that silence is more powerful than almost anything else that I ever do.

Rob  06:23

And the reason I say this applies in other areas of life is because it also works in interviews. I’ve been in the situation where I’ve been in an interview where I was working on getting a job, and they asked a question, I answered it to the best I could answer it to make sense. And they asked me another question. And I answered that question. But then I let it hang on. I just was quiet.

Rob  06:40

And they made a statement. They didn’t ask a question next, when they made a statement, that’s when I made the pause just didn’t answer the question. And then they talk to themselves. And they said to themselves, it doesn’t really matter. And they just went on. Because anytime somebody doesn’t ask me a question, I’m certainly not going to answer a statement. Anytime that somebody asked me a question. I’m certainly going to ask another question back to them.

Rob  07:01

The thing to know is as you move forward, and you start looking at how people are asking you questions, if they’re asking you a question, make sure you understand what question they’re asking by asking him some questions back. But also, more importantly, if they’re not asking you anything, it’s okay to stay quiet. Oh, by the way, one other thing, if you found that some of this stuff is helpful for you, what I would appreciate if you would do is take a screenshot of what episode you’ve listened to tweeted out, say this was a great episode, share it with somebody else.

Rob  07:28

That’s the most important thing that I would love to have you guys do is share it with other people. I don’t necessarily need anybody to call me and say, Hey, can I buy services from you? I’m not looking for that. All I’m looking for is you to help somebody else. That’s why we started this podcast when Lane and I started this, it was to help him. And my goal is to help other people where they need to help as well. So please, share the podcast if you found something helpful. Until next time, don’t forget, slow down and close more.

V/O  07:55

Thank you for listening to The Slow Pitch. Do you have a question about sales? Call or text your question at (608) 708_SLOW. That’s (608) 708-7569. Or you can email them to Questions@TheSlowPitch.com. Slow Down and Close More.

Rob  08:45

Thanks as always, for listening today. If you’d like this podcast, please subscribe and leave us a review. We really appreciate it. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at The Slow Pitch. We were mixed today as always by Johnny Polakis. We were produced by High Gravity Studios. Music credits and other notes are in the show notes section on TheSlowPitch.com. And we’ll be back with another episode soon.