By Jill Konrath, Contributing Editor
If you're like most sellers, silence drives you crazy. When you're talking with a prospective client and there is a brief lull in the discussion, I'll bet you jump right in to fill it.
Am I right?
In my days at IBM, I learned that the average salesperson, after asking a question, waits no more than 2-3 seconds before rephrasing the question, answering it themselves or moving on to another topic. And my experience shows that normal sellers have no idea that they're doing this.
What Silence Doesn't Look Like
Here's an examples of what I'm talking about:
"Let me ask you a question: What is the one single thing that you or your company could do in the upcoming 12 months that would dramatically impact your sales?
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