Carla was well into her sixties when she went to her doctor
complaining of nausea, exhaustion and occasional cramps. After a
thorough examination the doctor sent her to the hospital for a battery
of tests, and finally confronted her with the results. "Mrs. Barber,
medically it should be impossible at your age but there's no doubt about
it, you're pregnant."
"Impossible!" she cried, and fainted dead away. When she came to, she staggered to the phone and dialed her seventy-eight-year-old, retired salesman husband, and screeched, "You knocked me up, you randy old goat."
There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Then a voice said, "To whom am I speaking?"
Moral of the story. Now you know where the term "pregnant pause" comes from. True sales professionals know that at times, especially over the phone, it pays to play dumb. An effective pause at your end of the line, can encourage an irate customer to calm down or it can give you the time needed to come up with a plausible excuse. If you use the phone a lot, make sure to keep a Kleenex or similar material close at hand. Rubbing this material over the receiver while speaking, can render the clearest call immediately full of static, allowing you to say, "You're breaking up, I can barely hear....." (CLICK)
"Impossible!" she cried, and fainted dead away. When she came to, she staggered to the phone and dialed her seventy-eight-year-old, retired salesman husband, and screeched, "You knocked me up, you randy old goat."
There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Then a voice said, "To whom am I speaking?"
Moral of the story. Now you know where the term "pregnant pause" comes from. True sales professionals know that at times, especially over the phone, it pays to play dumb. An effective pause at your end of the line, can encourage an irate customer to calm down or it can give you the time needed to come up with a plausible excuse. If you use the phone a lot, make sure to keep a Kleenex or similar material close at hand. Rubbing this material over the receiver while speaking, can render the clearest call immediately full of static, allowing you to say, "You're breaking up, I can barely hear....." (CLICK)
"The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause."
- Mark Twain
