Land the Plane
Ask, then close your mouth — silence is a muscle you have to train.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
Land the plane is three words Carter wants people to memorise. When you ask a question or make a proposal, don't keep your plane in the air — bring it in for a landing and allow the silence. The failure mode is vivid: you ask 'what do you need to get this done today?' and then, panicked by the pause, add 'would ten thousand dollars do it?' It could have been five, and you just overpaid — or, with a job candidate, it could have been mentoring or vacation, and you'll never know. Carter frames silence tolerance as a trainable muscle, like going to the gym, and claims the returns compound into money made, deals closed, and closeness with people.
Origin
Carter teaches it as a memorable three-word rule for negotiators who bid against themselves. She reinforces it with a personal proof: she lost her voice for a week, and at the end of it felt closer to her daughter, her husband and her colleagues than she had before.
Core principles
- 01When you ask a question or make a proposal, do not keep talking — bring the plane in for a landing.
- 02Fear of silence makes you bid against yourself.
- 03The more comfortable you are with silence, the more the other person talks — and the more they may simply accept your proposal.
- 04Silence is like going to the gym: you have to build up a tolerance for it.
How to run it
- 1
Make one clean ask
Ask your question or make your proposal in a single statement. That's the whole delivery.
- 2
Land the plane
Do not keep the plane in the air. Sit back and close your mouth. The point of the ask is to create the pause.
Pro tip Memorise the three words — 'land the plane' — as your in-the-moment cue.
Watch out The instant you add 'would ten thousand do it?' you've bid against yourself and destroyed the information you were about to receive.
- 3
Tolerate the silence
Let it be uncomfortable. The more comfortable you become with silence, the more you encourage the other person to talk — and possibly to just accept your proposal.
- 4
Train the muscle
Treat silence like the gym — you have to work out and work up a tolerance for it. It's a capacity you build with reps, not a switch you flip.
Pro tip Carter's proof point: a week without her voice left her feeling closer to her daughter, husband and colleagues than before.
In the wild
Carter's canonical failure case: you ask 'what do you need to get this done here today?' and then, unable to bear the pause, you add 'um, would ten thousand dollars do it?'
→ It could have been five thousand — you overpaid by half. With a job candidate, the real answer might have been mentoring or vacation, and you paid cash for something they didn't even want.
The supplier who asked 'tell us how you're seeing the sector' then landed the plane. The distributor sat in stunned silence for a couple of seconds — and the supplier held the pause instead of filling it.
→ The distributor broke the silence by explaining exactly why they'd lost the deal twice before, which handed them the six-figure close.
Common mistakes
Naming a number after your own question
Volunteering a figure into your own pause is bidding against yourself. You'll never learn whether the real answer was lower, or wasn't money at all.
Treating silence as a talent rather than a trained capacity
People assume they're just 'not a silent person.' Carter's framing is that it's gym work — tolerance builds with reps.
Is it for you?
Best for
Fast talkers and anyone who fills pauses reflexively, especially in salary and pricing conversations.
Not ideal for
Cultures or contexts where an extended silence would read as hostility rather than invitation without any framing.
From the transcript
“it's three words that i would love people to memorize and those three words are land the plane”
“so often we're so scared of silence that we end up bidding against ourselves”
“silence is like going to the gym you have to work out and work up a tolerance for it”
“i lost my voice for one week and at the end of the week i felt closer to my daughter my husband and my colleagues…”
From the episode
Alexandra Carter: Negotiate Anything
Alexandra Carter