Sales professionals (especially men) know when to be quiet on a sales call. (I say "especially men" because we're terrible at jumping in to "solve and fix" things right away before we know the whole story.)
You have two ears and one mouth: Use them proportionately.
Last week I was on a demo call with a salesman wanting me to come on board as an affiliate to sell his software. He hadn't yet listened to this episode...and it was exhausting trying to keep up with him. He wouldn't take a breath. He'd start to answer my question before I finished asking it.
Mirror your prospects, which means match their demeanor, tone, and volume as best you can.
Understand their questions even if it means you have to ask five qualifying questions to do so.
For example, when I was a meteorologist in the Air Force, my briefing would be "short and sweet," i.e. "clear and calm until noon then winds gusting up to 20 knots out of the northwest until 5 pm with overcast conditions rolling in starting at 6 pm. Any questions?" Now I'd be prepared to discuss the hourly conditions for our base, our three nearest alternate bases in case the pilots had divert, as well as the target/mission area for the next 24 hours including?
But I didn't give every pilot on every mission every detail because most of them didn't want or need all of that information.
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