Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. It's the 22nd of February.
I'm showing you the power of silence. Let's get into it. Cato practiced the kind of public speech capable of moving the masses, believing proper political philosophy takes care like any great city to maintain the warlike element. But he was never seen practicing in front of others and no one ever heard him rehearse a speech. When he was told that people blamed him for his silence, he replied, better they not blame my life.
I begin to speak only when I'm certain what I'll say isn't better left unsaid from Kato the Younger. love that one. We do like Kato. Silence is something so powerful yet salespeople who lack the ability to use it. And a lot of the time, so most people feel awkward in silence, don't they? So this is how people can use it as a tool. So
If there is a silent gap, use that silent and let your prospects feel that gap because then they'll come forward with information, bits. Where do you find silence is best in the sales process? So many different places, so many different places. think an experiment you can do to see the power of sound, probably get into the sales application of it is if you're talking to a loved one or a family member or whoever it may be, I made out then that loved ones and family members are different, but you know what saying?
If you ask a big question and then leave lots of silence, so don't rush in to keep the conversation going. You'll find that people then will start to build on the dialogue. So they'll fill the silence themselves. Someone who's great at this, Louis Theroux comes to mind. So Louis Theroux might ask someone a big question around how does that make you feel? And they'll start talking and then they'll leave some silence. Instead of asking the next question, he just sits there and looks.
And this carry on and they start explaining it because thoughts are often just tangled up in weeds. Aren't they the actual thought, the thing that you're trying to say is all tangled up in weeds. That's what therapists is trying to get rid of all those weeds. And you can often help yourself in doing this, just having enough room for someone to talk, just holding that space can really open things up. So I think in a sales setting, you might be asking questions within questions and not allowing lots of room because you're scared of the silence going on.
So if I said to someone, what do you think the problem is? And they said, well, it might be this, it might be that. Gosh, I'm not really too sure. And left it for a second. Okay, well, I think it might be, and they'll get there themselves. They don't always need to be coaxed along. And maybe there's something you can talk about about pricing as well. That's probably the most obvious place where silence is useful. Delivering price silences is...
Abs- silence is golden, as they say in the movies. But a little hack I would give to salespeople is count. When you've been quiet, because what can often happen is you feel like you've been quiet for so long. Actually, it might have only been a few seconds. So if it gets to 20 seconds, then you can probably use humor to make a joke. But if I was to say to why do you think that's a problem? And you answer and then you stop and I go one Mississippi, two Mississippi.
Three Mississippi, four Mississippi. Probably within five seconds, they probably will answer. But typically people get to two Mississippi, get scared and then go, oh yeah. So we speak a little bit about like listening and what you're actually listening to. When you deliver price, the best thing to do after you've delivered price is just shut up. Just be quiet because then you're gonna get the first realistic reaction, okay? So if I say it's 500 pounds.
What do you think of that, Zach? Is that too expensive? You're kind of showing your hand quite early. But if I say, OK, so the price is 500 pounds.
you've got a strong poker face at this point. Cause you're not giving me anything. no, no. I think, I think we can, I think we can work with that. Okay. Four nine five, four nine five, four nine seven. But in those situations, people, people, there are different types of personality types that feel awkward within silence. So people will kind of feel that silence and some people are just processing it. So don't assume that just because someone's silent, they feel awkward or weird. But if you ended up in that situation where you say it's four nine five.
There's a big silence. And you go, well, I feel, I feel like I might've shocked you to silence now with that, that price. No, no, no. I was just thinking about how that would work in the budgets. There's ways around it. I'll give you the last one as well, where I think this is really useful. So the technique of labeling, comes up time and time again, because it's one of my favorite techniques, right? Sounds like, seems like, feels like. Where people start to think this doesn't work is they'll use it and get a yes response.
So you might tell me something, Jack, and I might say, oh, that sounds really frustrating. And you might go, yeah, it is. And they rush in, then, oh, it hasn't worked. And they rush into it. But same rules you've just said, if I count in my head, so if I went, sounds really frustrating, Jack. Yeah, yeah, it is.
Because we've been exactly at a point where the brain's been let run a little bit. So don't just rush in. There's all different kinds of personalities on that. There's York sort of bullish, typical CEO type who might be lots of opinions and running in maybe a little bit of ego in there. But you're also going to deal with people who are more analytical. And for those people, silence can be really important, giving them enough space to think and enough space to feel comfortable exploring their own thoughts. Zip your mouth up.
Don't rush in to save the day. I've been Jack Frimston. I've been Zack Thompson. Remember you will die. bungle.
