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Have you ever noticed how much Americans like to talk? They love to talk, they love to be talked to with their televisions and radios and computers constantly talking, talking, talking. They seem to delegate silence or stillness with those few get back to nature days (and even then, I noticed a kid with a GameBoy the last time I was in the park). There seems to be a fear of silence especially when we’re conversing. The spaces in between words feel awkward to us. Someone HAS to be talking or we’re simply not communicating effectively (or so it seems). And the worst is in sales, when we’ve got the product or service sold, and somehow we can’t keep our mouths shut and therefore ruin our chances in some cases.

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. . .

One of my personal breakthroughs, and a big one, happened for me when I realized that I didn’t have to spend a whole lot of time in that chit chat mode. When I was just a kid starting out in sales, I can’t even count the number of times I totally destroyed the sale by being too talkative. I was consistently derailing my chances. And the more I saw the sale derailing, the more I would talk, nervously, in an attempt to regain the footing I had lost.

I realized I was absolutely giving the prospect or client an out by chattering on too long. I wondered, why don’t they like me more, why don’t they want to be my friend? Why don’t they want to talk about personal, day-to-day stuff with me? I can tell you exactly why. . . they were not getting from me the answer to the burning question within them.

I realize I have been blessed with the gift of gab. The shift in my thinking came when I realized I had to fashion what I was saying to focus intently on the prospect and their needs and not my own agenda.

So what is the burning question? The question is, “What can you do for me, Kenrick?” Our prospects are ultimately wanting to know, “What’s in this for me? What is it that you’re going to do to help me?” The only way to find the answers to these questions is to elicit their criteria and once you’ve elicited their criteria, then we have to get to the meaning.

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.

Tags: NLP

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