Silent Steve…2017 wasn’t bad

Silent Steve…

Not a chatty guy

 

Among the most famous silent types was none other than the early twentieth century President Calvin Coolage. His verbal reticence was so well known that a wife of a Senator made a bet that she could get Coolage to utter more than two words at a White House dinner.  After several minutes of uncomfortable silence with nary a word from the President, she said to old Cal, “I bet a friend that I could get you to say more than two words. To which he replied: “You lose”.

 

In the case of the silent type buyer we might not be up against an adversary quite that savvy, but unless we’re sensitive to that personality types’ sense of what’s favorable – versus what’s off-putting, we’ll quickly find that loquaciousness is not a positive! This guy often sees any excessive verbality as silly and irresponsible – and that the person who he sees as talking too much as not worth spending time with. Mind you, Silent Steve isn’t against talking, he just sees the positive in economy of words.

 

What that tells us is that to penetrate his resistance, we need to do two things: First we absolutely must concentrate our thoughts into fewer words and secondly make judicious use of well phrased questions that can’t be easily answered with a yes or a no. That requires phrasing that elicits his opinions and beliefs, such as, “As you see it, how does this idea fit your operation?”

 

Quiet buyers, as well as every other difficult type we’ve covered in this set of articles are a challenge, but bear in mind that once sold, your competitor will have a challenging time in his attempt to wrest the business away from you when he makes that attempt.

2017 wasn’t bad…

2018 oughta be great!

 

What? It can’t be 2018 yet! … Or can it? Well, just as the years seem to move more quickly as we age, the months of the years seem to flip by at a more rapid rate as we burn through the calendar. But by most measures 2017’s been a pretty good year and chances are you’re likely happy with how its’ gone. And that positive rests on a solid fact: The growing economy, like a rising tide that lifts all the boats in the harbor, lifted your year as well.

 

Better news is that 2018 promises to be even stronger. With the new tax law, the domestic economy humming nicely (to include most of the rest of the world), a stock market that seems to have a lot of steam left in it and, very importantly, the physiological “wealth effect” of consumers’ mindset, they’re poised to keep spending. All that points toward a great year in our market.

 

But as the old saying goes, we have to make hay while the sun shines. Sure, we could sit back and probably have a pretty good year by just holding on to what we have and by letting those customers’ growth fuel ours. But that would be the worst thing we could possibly do. To the contrary, we need to make 2018 the year of incremental growth by capitalizing on the strength that’s already cooked into the cake.

 

So, it’s time to drag out the old prospect list, add a few new names and make plans to close more of them … and to do it sooner than ever before.