Chapter 6
Shut Up!
They talk when they should listen.
—Don Corleone, The Godfather
How many times have you heard someone complain, or complained yourself, that someone wouldn't shut up and let anybody else talk? We tend to characterize marathon talkers—motormouths—as having an oversized need for control. That's a fair assessment, and control of a conversation is for sure a very powerful means of getting one's way, if only in the short term. Customers feel the same way. Given that your customer also seeks to control the sales conversation and is only willing to reveal as much as he thinks it useful for you to know, how do you turn the conversational tables to your advantage? Upend them!
Most sales training systems teach that for the salesperson to gain and maintain control of the sales cycle, the seller must seize control of the conversation right out of the gate and keep talking all the way through to the signature on the contract. Supposedly, keeping the customer from getting a word in edgewise is the best way to keep him from scuttling the deal the seller has in mind. I'm sorry, but there's a reason that the wire-to-wire strategy is among the least-used in horse racing: because it demands constant superior performance from beginning to end. Sure, the wire-to-wire gambit can work every so often, but no thoroughbred trainer worth his oats would make it a habit. And a racing oval is a far less complicated path to negotiate than a sales cycle.
Yet this monopolizing chatter is the ...
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