Finance Literacy

I’ve noticed something interesting recently and that is, Americans love to talk. They love to listen to other people talk too (like the television or radio). They get their books on tape. They have the radio tuned to talk shows. . . we’re a people uncomfortable with the sound of silence. This is especially true in conversations. There’s an awkwardness that most people experience when there’s a lull or a bit of space in the conversation and they struggle to fill that void. This can be particularly damaging in sales especially when we’ve almost got our product or service sold, and then muck it up with too much talk.

Part of this filling in of the spaces, is the chatter. We’re all familiar with the classic sales persona, looking at the photographs on the wall or desk of their prospect, asking how the wife and kids or husband and kids are, how the golf game is — basically, chit chat. And even more detrimental to sales, is the chit chat that happens after the sale is in the bag, but not signed off on. This is the stuff that breaks the deal because maybe we’re excited about having made the sale and we begin to blather on and on. . .

I personally had a tremendous breakthrough when I realized I needed to keep my mouth shut more often. For someone who likes to talk, that’s a tall order. As a young man, i would constantly derail myself over and over in sales situations, by chit chatting them out of the contract. What’s worse, when I noticed it derailing, I would talk even more to try to get it back on track. Did it work? No.

If a prospect or client was looking for a way out, I would give it to them eventually if I chattered on too long. I kept wondering why they didn’t want to be more like my friend, why they didn’t want to talk about more personal, day-to-day stuff. I can tell you the reason this is the case is because they weren’t getting the answer to a burning question within them.

I fully accept that I have been blessed with the gift of gab. I will say, however, that the shift in my thinking happened when I realized I had to form what I was saying to focus intensely on the prospect and on what they needed and wanted and not my own agenda.

And what is that deep, dark, burning question? The question is, what can you do for me? What is in it for me? What are you going to do to help me? And that’s it. And the way we find the answers to these questions is to elicit their criteria and proceed to define it.

Criteria and its meaning have got to be the foremost thing in your mind when making a sale, no ifs, ands or buts. Remember this, and you won’t be derailed.