You don’t want to be the salesperson that “steamrolls” your prospect by talking over them.
If you go back and listen to your calls, there should never be a moment where you are talking at the same time that your prospect is talking.
Your prospect’s words are like honey. They are rich with information about your prospect’s thought process and vitally important to closing the sale.
It’s also just rude and annoying to have someone talking over you. It will cause your prospect to clam up or just end the encounter altogether.
There are three ways to ensure you’re not talking over your prospect: talk less in general, talk for shorter periods of time, and allow for long pauses.
- Talk less in general.
40:60 is a good ratio. In other words, you as the salesperson should be talking less than half the time during a sales conversation. If you could talk 30% of the conversation, while still saying enough to convey your value proposition, that would be even better.
The underlying principle here is described in more detail in Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People. He says, “Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.”
- Talk for shorter periods of time.
This achieves two things. First, it makes your words more powerful. Like a rare resource becomes more valuable because of scarcity, so should it be for your words.
Second, it gives your prospect an opportunity to talk. If your prospect has a thought about something you’re saying, you need to hear it. In other words, you want to bring your prospect’s internal dialogue out loud on the phone call.
For example, let’s say an amateur sales rep is talking too much, and they make a three-part statement all in one breath.
But what if the prospect had a thought about the first part? It would be awkward to bring it up after the third part, because now the topic has changed. So the prospect just keeps quiet and the amateur sales rep never hears that thought from their prospect.
On the other hand, imagine a pro sales rep who splits that long-winded, three-part statement into three separate, short statements with long pauses in between. Voila! The prospect starts talking after the first part of the statement and the salesperson gets an insight into the prospect’s thought process that would have otherwise gone unsaid.
- Allow for longer pauses.
The pause should be long, like longer than you would think. Long enough that it’s almost awkward. Between 3-5 seconds is usually a good pause.
You should allow for these pauses after you’re done talking, as well as after your prospect is done talking.
Sometimes your prospect stops to take a breath, but they still have more to say. We don’t want to cut their train of thought short. We need to hear everything that’s on their mind.
As for when you finish talking, you want to hear your prospect’s reaction.
Sometimes it’s as subtle as just a barely audible noise. It might sound like hmph, ahhh, or ohhh—all of these sounds have different meanings and are important clues for how your prospect is feeling.
Single-word answers (like okay, fine, and great) also have very different and important meanings. Make sure you are listening to these and not talking over them.
Summary:
If you are doing all the talking, your prospect will just think to themselves, instead of sharing their thoughts with you.
If you say too many things in quick succession, the prospect will only be able to respond to the last thing you said. And you won’t get to hear their thoughts about the first or second things that you said.
If there is a long pause, the prospect will tell you their thoughts about what you just said (or continue with their own train of thought).
Talk less, sell more.