The Power of Silence

Silence is a powerful tool in negotiations, conversations, and especially workouts.

Have you ever been in an aggressive debate and seen the effect of ignoring statements?  How angry do you get if someone refuses to acknowledge something you have said?  How easy is it to use silence to manipulate a conversation?

The answer to those are all pretty much the same; Extremely.

Not to say the use of silence is not a skill that must be honed, but once you know how you can use silence as a tool, the actual results are easy to come by.

In a workout situation this is used in a different way as well.  Silence from our clients.  We advise our clients to refer the creditors to us and then simply ignore them.  If a creditor can reach the client, why would they ever reach out to a company who’s obligation is to beat them as hard as possible and give them the least amount of gain?  Would you?

This has worked for me many times where the creditor has fallen prey to this strategy.  Many times a creditor will ignore my emails and phone calls for days or even weeks.  When they come up against a no contact situation from my client, they have no choice, but to call me and work with our process.  Creditors are people, and like everyone else they dislike a lack of movement toward goals they are trying to accomplish.  In the case of a workout, the goal is to clear a file from their desk.  With that in mind, it makes perfect sense that when they cannot speak to my client and I am offering a sure fire plan to reach that goal, Second Wind becomes a very helpful thing in the banker’s eyes.

Silence is golden.