Your explanation is usually what kills the sale. According to the source, most salespeople love the sound of their own voice, and when they go quiet, the client starts to talk and sometimes sells to themselves. What you do instead of explaining is lead the conversation with a question, and then be quiet.
If you have ever walked out of a meeting feeling you explained everything and the client still did not buy, the booklet says this chapter was written for you, and that the explaining itself was the problem.
Why the good ones talk too much
The source spares even experienced salespeople this remark. An experienced salesman is told by a mentor that, like most professional salespeople, he enjoys his own voice, and should say much less and listen much more.
The reason it hits the good ones is simple. Whoever knows the product deeply can explain it well, and explaining feels like work. According to the booklet, it is the opposite of work, because it is what happens in place of the work.
Suppose an owner who leaves a meeting feeling excellent and does not close. He talked for 80% of the time and felt he had conveyed the value. At the next meeting he counted the minutes, talked for about a third of it, and closed.
The good feeling after the first meeting is part of the problem. Someone who talked a lot can feel that the value was conveyed, while the client has said very little.
The client will sell to himself
The surprising part of the chapter is the mechanism. According to the source, in many cases a question or a directed remark is enough, and the client talks himself into the purchase. You sit there agreeing quietly, simply by nodding.
The source goes on to explain what happens in that moment. The client sells himself and clears away his own objections instead of waiting for you to do it for him. In effect, he overcomes his own fear.
This explains something every seller has seen and nobody trusts. Sometimes you stay quiet and the deal closes. The booklet says there is a mechanism behind it, and luck has little to do with it.
Suppose a client who asks how long this will take, then answers himself out loud: even two months would still be faster than what he does today. Nobody argued with him. Or a client who raises the price as a problem and then says on her own that if it saves her a day a week, it pays for itself.
There is a warning here. When the client starts selling himself, do not help. According to the booklet, help at that stage is interference, and any argument can wreck what he built alone.
Lead with a question, then be quiet
A rule follows, and the booklet calls it the most practical line in the whole text. According to the source, you steer the person toward talking about what you want to know, using suggestion, questions and the like. Then you stay quiet, concentrate on remembering what they say, and let them talk.
The rule has two parts, and the first is the one most people manage. You control the subject, since you pick the question, and the client supplies the talking. With the question you hold the direction of the conversation without holding all of its time. Whoever controls both the subject and the talking is delivering a monologue.
The source lists two more gains. The quiet calms the client, and helps him talk himself out of his own objections to buying now. At the same time you get the details you have to have.
Suppose you ask the client to tell you how it works for him at the moment. One such question can bring out five minutes of information you would never have thought to ask for. Asking what he has tried so far works the same way. It reveals what failed and why, and stops you proposing exactly what has already failed him.
The opposite is asking in the third minute whether you are going ahead. There is no information yet, so there is nothing to go ahead with.
The conversation matters more than what is said in it
The chapter closes with a link to a wider principle. According to the source, the two-way communication cycle matters more than the content.
In a meeting, that means the movement itself, back and forth between question and answer, matters more than anything said inside it. A meeting that went brilliantly for you but had no movement back and forth never really took place. The source adds a rule that also explains an unanswered email: communication exists to be replied to or used.
Suppose an owner who measures meetings by the number of times the client started a sentence on his own initiative, and not by the clock. When that count is low, he knows the meeting did not work. Or a consultant who stops every few minutes and asks the client whether what she is saying fits with what he sees. It is a small pause, and it puts the movement back into the conversation.
The booklet gives this chapter two exercises, one for measuring and one for building, and a self-check.
What the client needs from you in a meeting is a good question, and room to answer it. He often does most of the rest himself.