Jeff Moehling 804-921-5813 jemoehling@sales.ashleyfurniture.
Professional Selling
Thank you text/email
Thank you for visiting us today! I enjoyed meeting you and appreciate your time. My goal is to help you find furniture that makes your home beautiful & functional.
Ashley offers style, comfort and durability at the best possible price, I'll do my best to find products that meet your needs and look great doing it!
Your time is valuable, so please let me know what you need, and I will find something you love.
Professionally,
Jeff Moehling (off Tues & Wed)
Ashley Furniture Specialist
804-921-5813
Cost isn't just the price tag, its dollar investment, time & effort to change!
7 Negative Buying Signals Every Salesperson Needs to Know (And What to Do About Them)
https://youtu.be/att4D8Fq6EY?si=l8nNX1_KVquwULmk
Most salespeople are trained to spot when a customer is ready to buy. But knowing when they're *not* buying is just as critical, and far fewer people talk about it.
I call them negative buying signals. These are statements your customer makes that tell you (if you're paying attention) that they're mentally checked out. They're not in. And if you keep selling like everything's fine, you're wasting your time and theirs.
What makes this tricky is that it's not just *what* they say. It's how they say it. Body language, tone, and the actual words. You triangulate all three to know where you really stand.
Here are the seven I see most often.
1. "Can you just send me a formal quote?"
There's a world of difference between "I love what I'm hearing, can you send me a quote?" and "Yeah, just send me a quote."
The second version is a dismissal dressed up as a next step. The customer is trying to get you off the phone without saying no to your face. Before you put anything together, ask them what's most important to them in making this decision. Make them engage.
2. "Just send me some more information."
Tone is everything here. If there's genuine curiosity behind it, great. But if it's said with flat, distracted energy, they're not looking for information. They're looking for an exit.
Qualify it. Ask what specifically would be most helpful for them to see. If they can't answer that, you have your answer.
3. "I need to get three bids before I decide."
This one feels neutral but it skews negative. When someone leads with the bid process, they're telling you the conversation is about price, not value, not quality, not you.
Your job is to change that frame. Talk about what separates you beyond the number on the page. Make them think differently about what they're actually buying.
4. "That's interesting."
This one lights up every alarm in my head. "That's interesting" is almost always a mental hiccup. Something people say when they don't know how to respond because they're not really engaged.
Call it out professionally. Ask them what they found interesting about that. Watch what happens. If they can explain it, great, you've re-engaged them. If they stumble, now you know they weren't listening.
5. Short, clipped answers to your questions.
When a customer is genuinely invested, they talk. They tell you what they want, why they want it, what worries them. When they're not invested, you get one-word answers and "just give me a quote on that."
If you're doing all the talking and getting nothing back, the conversation is already over. You just haven't realized it yet.
6. "I'm just doing some research right now."
That's fine, but don't accept it and walk away. Ask what information they'd need to feel confident making a decision. Ask what their buying timeline looks like. You're not closing, you're qualifying. There's a difference.
7. "Either way, just quote both."
When a customer has no preference, they have no commitment. No preference means they're shopping on one variable only: price. And if you're in a price race, you're already losing.
Help them develop a preference. Ask questions that create stakes around the decision. Make the options matter to them.
When you hear these signals, don't panic and don't sell harder. That's the instinct, but it's wrong.
Slow down. Ask more open-ended questions. Draw them back into the conversation.
These signals aren't rejection. They're an invitation to re-engage, if you're smart enough to recognize them for what they are. The alarm should go off in your head the moment you hear any of these. They're not in. I need to change my approach right now.
The salespeople who win aren't just great at closing. They're great at reading the room and adjusting before it's too late.
Ready to Buy ... then Customer suddenly freezes
- Have you noticed how some customers seem ready to buy, then suddenly freeze up?
- Here's what's happening in their head: they're stuck between anxiety and certainty.
Think of it on a balance scale. On one side sits their anxiety about making the wrong choice. On the other hand, there is certainty about what they want.
When anxiety outweighs certainty, nobody's buying anything.
(Even when they're perfectly balanced, customers still won't pull the trigger.)
Your job isn't pushing harder. It's to tip that scale.
Lower their anxiety by really listening to their concerns. Increase their certainty by helping them understand exactly what they're getting.
But here's where most salespeople mess up: they know too much.
You're the expert. They're not. That gap between your product knowledge and theirs is killing your sales.
When you use industry jargon or rush through explanations, you're increasing their anxiety. They get confused, lost, and default to "let me think about it."
The fix is simple: slow down to speed up the sale.
Take time to explain things in plain English. Close that knowledge gap. The moment they truly understand what they're getting, certainty shoots up and anxiety drops.
Victor Antonio
The three-option strategy that doubles your average sale
Quick question: When you go to Starbucks, which size do you usually order?
If you're like most people, you pick the medium.
Here's why that matters for your sales.
Starbucks doesn't offer small, medium, and large by accident. They know something about human psychology that most salespeople miss.
When faced with three options, people almost always pick the middle one. It feels safer - not too cheap, not too expensive.
But here's where it gets interesting: if you only offer two options, people default to the cheaper one to avoid risk.
This is pure brain science. We're wired to mitigate risk, and when in doubt, we go low.
So what does this mean for you?
Always present three options. Always.
But here's the advanced move: make your middle option closer in price to your premium option. Suddenly, people start comparing those two and ignore the low-end choice entirely.
You're not pushing them toward anything. You're simply giving their brain a framework to make a confident decision.
Customers don't want to be sold to, but they do want to buy. Your job is to make that choice as easy as possible
Victor Antonio
Sales Process
Casegoods Education
- Features & Benefits - Casegoods
- 1 page guide to Jeff Moehling.com
- Romance Words that sell.
- Homestore Floor Notes (blank)
- History of Wood
- The Ashley Story
- The Wood Story
- Quality Testing
- Body Language
- Talking tips for salespeople
- 2 words never to forget.
- Wood Construction
- Furniture Glossary of Terms
- Finishing Terminology
- Construction Highlights
