Selling: The Seven Second Delay

I sold real estate after leaving my school teaching job and before starting my catering career running our family catering business. One of the life-changing tactics I learned from a silver haired sales trainer was simply this: Not hearing what you are about to say to a prospect, before you say it, is the enemy of successful selling.

I was taught to "hear" what I was thinking of saying before I spoke the words. As I was listening to what I was going to say, I was supposed to really clearly challenge the usefulness and properness of the words I was about to launch. My trainer mentioned that many radio stations have a seven-second delay from the time a word is spoken to the time it is broadcast to the time it hit the ears of the listener. In this way, it was possible for a director or producer of the radio program to hit a button that would "kill" the words before they were past the point of no return.

When I train catering salespeople I always teach this concept. Now, teaching it and making it "stick" with the sales talent is more complicated than it might seem. This is an easy concept to understand but very hard to actual do, let alone master. My suggestion is to just try it and see how it feels and blends into your selling style. Good luck!