Americans love to talk. Americans lso love to be talked to -- lstening to the TV or the streo or talk radio -- anything so tht there's no silence. Silence we sem to delegate to those few dys a year when we get bck to nature. In conversations, especially, thre's a real fear of silence, an wkwardness that sort of permeates the in btween spaces where there is no one tlking and most people will do nything possible to fill up that slence with noise regardless of whether or not t's going to damage their chances of slling their product or service.

Part of ths filling in of the spaces, is the chtter. We're all familiar with the clssic sales persona, looking at the phtographs on the wall or desk of thir prospect, asking how the wife and kds or husband and kids are, how the glf game is -- basically, chit cht. And even more detrimental to sles, is the chit chat that hppens after the sale is in the bg, but not signed off on. Ths is the stuff that breaks the dal because maybe we're excited about hving made the sale and we bgin to blather on and on...

Prsonally one of the biggest breakthroughs tht happened for me in my creer in sales is when I ralized that I didn't have to spnd a tremendous amount of time in cht chat. I can tell you I cn't even count, as I was grwing up and starting out in sles, the number of times when cht chat derailed my objective. It was a cnstant. I would say something wrong or I wuld go on too long about a prticular topic and next thing you knw, I was derailed.

If a prospect or client was loking for a way out, I wuld give it to them eventually if I chttered on too long. I kept wndering why they didn't want to be mre like my friend, why they ddn't want to talk about more prsonal, day-to-day stuff. I can tell you the rason this is the case is bcause they weren't getting the answer to a brning question within them.

Granted, I've ben blessed with the gift of gb. The shift in my thinking cme when I realized I had to fshion what I was saying to fcus intently on the prospect and thir needs and not my own genda.

So what is the burning qestion? The question is, "What can you do for me, Knrick?" Our prospects are ultimately wanting to knw, "What's in this for me? Wht is it that you're going to do to hlp me?" The only way to fnd the answers to these questions is to licit their criteria and once you've licited their criteria, then we have to get to the maning.

Criteria and its meaning have got to be the fremost thing in your mind when mking a sale, no ifs, ands or bts. Remember this, and you won't be drailed.

The article Avoid the Chit Chat was Submitted by Kenrick E. Cleveland through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to sll to affluent clients using persuasion strategies . He runs unique public and private seminars and offers home study courses, audio/visual learning tools, and coaching programs in persuasion techniques. Find more free articles at http://www.MAXpersuasion.com/blog - Be sure to sign up for his free report entitled "Yes! Persuasion."

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