The Closing Ma

Marie Kondo launches her latest assault on global bestseller book charts. But beyond 'tidying up', can it also help 'spark joy' for us solution salespeople?

With it she shares fabrics from her native Japanese customs which she believes would fit snugly in a Western setting.

One of which might be right up our street.

Ma. The art of the pause in conversation.

Here's her illumination (from a wider sub'n req'd piece);

“I think this is a very unique concept. It’s experiencing the gap, the pause. If you are talking, it’s fun to keep talking and talking but at the same time you don’t need to fill every gap, every space. You can enjoy that pause. In Japanese we talk about reading between the lines, seeing what feelings are there that aren’t being put into words. The ma, the silence, gives us the opportunity to realise both our own feelings and what other people might be thinking. It’s the opportunity to think more deeply about what you are doing and what you are saying and for me it’s a very nice, comfortable feeling.”

It's fair to say that this is not something widely observed in our selling culture.

Whilst we're pretty much all aware of 'the closing silence', it is as a weapon, rather than as deeper tool producing connection, understanding or even consideration.

When many years back selling to Sales leaders, I realised I'd adapted the art of keeping quiet when necessary myself. After a successful closing meeting one of my charges remarked how the many subtle pauses had worked so well. We dealt with the garrulous, with rapid fire chat where, despite their profession, no conversational gap was ever allowed to seed.

Those being very much pauses. Not challenges. Certainly bearing fruit.

The combo of being in Sales and the product of Western exceptionalism gungho can prove intoxicatingly diverting. Moving us away from contemplative agreement when shutting up is viewed as weakness, distrust, or rejection.

In Japan, it seems, 'ma' is embraced, expected, encouraged. To not engage in it would be seen as the negative state. Quite the opposite to how my formative selling years ran.

There's long been the personal relationship steer that it isn't how well you get along chatting away with someone, but how comfortable you feel when together in silence, that determines true companionship.

To help reach that genuine solution-affirming state with a buyer, learning how to pause in this ma sense feels a proper route to combined success.