Silence Is NOT Golden

All throughout our sales career we have been told that “silence is golden”. That “he who speaks next, loses”. Wrong! Silence is NOT GOLDEN, and if you stay silent too long after the closing question the prospect will simply fill it with a knee jerk reactionary response such as “I need to think about” or something along those lines and you are dead in the water. I call it a knee jerk reactionary response because growing up we are conditioned to react to certain things with certain, imbedded responses, and in sales prospects will revert back to the ones we hate just out of comfort and ease in ending the sales pressure. You need to keep them away from these responses and to keep them talking, if only to continue to find the one to two last remaining items holding up the sale.



There is no question that when you ask for the sale you need to give them time to ponder, to allow them to go over the facts and the value of the deal you have laid out, however, too long a time frame can make it uncomfortable for both you. My next technique is on dealing with silence as it relates to price. The situation that will arise when you ask for the sale and they are STILL pondering the price or at the moment you show them the price and they fall silent. Obviously, 95% of the time they are looking at your price with a wide range of thoughts going through their head, thoughts they will be hesitant in sharing with you, such as;


“Can I really afford this?”
“Will this fit in my budget?”
“This wasn’t what I was expecting?”
“They need to come down on this before I will even consider it?”


These are just a tip of the iceberg that are running wildly through their minds as they look at your price silent, pondering, etc. The novice sales person in this situation suddenly begins to have thoughts of their own such as ;

“What are they thinking? Am I too high?”
“I was told to stay silent, let them think about for a few minutes, what now?”
“Maybe I could come down a little bit on price”.


These confused thoughts from the inexperienced salesperson will fester just as the thoughts of the prospect on their concerns about the price, and the silence will continue until someone fills the void. I firmly feel that the silence needs to be filled as soon as the uncomfort level begins to materialize and I utilize this moment to get them talking again, and I do it in such a way that it gets the “price” component out front and center so we can deal with it and close. Let me illustrate:


You: “I see you are really having some thoughts about the cost Susan and I don’t blame you, we get that a lot. You are probably wondering how we can do what we do so inexpensively?”

Prospect: “ No, actually I thought the cost was a bit high.”

You: “Really? Wow, I am surprised to hear you say that, I have to admit I haven’t heard that in quite a while. If you don’t mind my asking what were you expecting to pay?”


(BANG!!!!! You have broken the silence without ending the sale, and NOW you have them engaged again and giving you the vital information you need to close the sale.)

Prospect: “To be honest, I was expecting to pay $10,000, not $11,500. That is a little out of my budget.”


What has she just told you? She said that you have a deal if you can somehow bring it down $1,500. At this point she has given you powerful information with which to work with you and you now have a few options. You can:

A.) Give in and close the deal at $10,000 and eat into your profit and commission (if applicable).

B.) Go back to showing the benefits and value your product has at the $11,500 price and hope she caves in.

C.) (What I STRONGLY recommend) Pull the $1,500 out of the equation and show value for THAT portion of the deal, not the aggregate sum of $11,500. Why? Because she is already content enough to pay $10,000, just cannot see paying an additional $1,500. So what do you do? Create value for the $1,500 and how spending this additional small amount will make a world of difference in performance over your competition. Take the $1,500 and break it down over the life of the product or service, letting her see that over the long haul the benefits far outweigh the additional cost.

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