A short sales-training monologue demonstrating and naming a conversational technique called “verbal pausing.” The speaker shows how asking permission with fragmented phrasing (“Can I. Can I ask you something?”), lowering tone, and slowing cadence causes prospects to lean in and hang on every word, avoiding the effect of steamrolling them.
A lot of salespeople like, hey, let me ask you a question. And then they ask the question. They just steamroll. What's going on in that prospect's mind is like, basically, you just gave them no choice. But if I lean in, I'm like, can I. Can I ask you something? You always like, yeah, what's going on? And what I just did there is I triggered your brain to be like, wow, it must be something really important. So when I start to ask you, you're hanging on to every word. Can I. Can I ask you something? And I lower my tone, rather let me ask it and then ask it where I'm bulldozing you, where they don't listen to you. I'm slowing down the cadence. That's just a little example of what we call verbal pausing, which breaks the pattern.
