Sometimes, you just need to Shut Up on sales calls

Good Morning. We were told AI agents were going to do our work while we kicked back on the beach. Instead, a new article says that people managing AI agents are actually working more. They’re checking their work, fixing mistakes, and dealing with a lot of the same management headaches they have with humans. So somehow, AI is doing more of the work, and we’re still working more. Now, let’s get into today’s Follow Up. (:

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Back in 1997, Steve Jobs was sitting onstage at Apple’s developer conference when a guy in the audience called him bright and influential.

But he changed his tune pretty fast. A few seconds later, he told Steve: “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Then he followed that up by asking Steve what he’d been doing for the past 7 years.

(And he wasn’t asking it nicely…)

Steve picked up a glass of water and took a sip. Then he let the room wait. In silence.

When he finally answered, he admitted the guy was right about some things. Then he explained why Apple needed to start with what customers wanted and build from there.

Now, hopefully your prospects are a little nicer than that dude in the crowd.

But when someone pushes back on your price or something about your product, it’s easy to rush straight into an answer. Before you’ve even thought it through, you start defending. Scrambling for a rebuttal or offering a discount they never asked for.

A pause is an incredibly powerful tool, and it can help you in many different ways.

So today, we’re getting into why it works, why it feels so awkward, and how to get better at using it on your sales calls.

A buyer says, “That’s more than we expected.”

So you start explaining the price. They ask if you can do any better. Now you’re working out how much you can knock off.

And you still haven’t figured out what’s behind the objection.

An MIT research team examined pauses across 4 negotiation studies. In one experiment, participants played a recruiter and a job candidate negotiating an offer.

Each side had its own priorities, and the points worked like a scorecard for two different wish lists. Getting terms you cared about more earned you more points. Adding both scores showed how much value the pair got from the deal overall.

Pairs earned a higher combined score, on average, when at least one person was told to pause.

Across the studies, the researchers found that silence helped the person pausing think through their options. But these were negotiation simulations, so applying the findings to your sales calls takes some judgment.

Here’s where I think this can be useful…

Let’s say a buyer wants your product, but paying the whole bill this month would leave them short on cash.

Use the pause to think about how you can break down the objection. Is the total price the problem, or is it paying the whole bill at once?

If the issue is when the money leaves their account, spreading out the payments might help. The buyer gets some breathing room, and you still get paid the full amount.

There’s another place where silence is extremely powerful: while you’re explaining something.

If you run through the demo or pricing without a break, your buyer has to interrupt you to join in. It’s like trying to merge onto a highway with no gap between the cars.

A 2025 experiment tested whether brief pauses while talking make the speaker seem more helpful.

With more pauses, listeners gave about 5X as many responses, like “yeah” and “uh-huh.” They also said the speaker was more helpful.

A “yeah” is a long way from a signed contract. But the useful lesson here is to leave room for the buyer to react.

Explain one part of your offer, then leave a small gap. If they start talking, let them finish before you move on.

That might be where you hear, “Actually, getting everyone trained is the bit I’m worried about.” And now you have something worth talking about before you open the next slide.

Staying quiet sounds easy until your brain starts yelling, “Say something. Anything.”

Even the MIT researchers found that people resisted adding pauses in the tests.

Getting good at using silence is a skill to practice over time.

If you want to practice this, pick one moment to work on. Finish explaining a point, leave a gap, and listen if the buyer jumps in.

When you need time to think, say, “Hmmmm...” and then go silent. And actually give yourself a moment to consider your answer.

If a buyer raises an objection, use the pause to figure out what you need to ask. Once you understand the concern, dig into it.

When the MIT researchers made the difference in status obvious, pauses from the lower-status person didn’t improve the deal for the pair.

So keep the context in mind as you practice. There’s no prize for making someone stare at you while you count to ten.

Check out The Follow Up Guy on LinkedIn.

Thumbnail photo: Steve Jobs by Matthew Yohe, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.