Way of the Wolf: Straight Line Selling: Master the Art of Persuasion, Influence, and Success

However, as powerful as the Straight Line System is, it completely breaks down in the absence of one crucial element, which is: You need to take immediate control of the sale.

Without control, it’s like you’re an amateur boxer stepping into the ring with Mike Tyson. Within seconds, you’d be completely on the defensive, covering up from Tyson’s massive blows, until one finally slips through, and you get knocked out.

Yet, from Tyson’s perspective, because he took immediate control of the encounter, from literally the moment the bell rang, he won the fight by knockout before it had even started—same as he did in the last fight, and the fight before that, and the fight before that.

Put another way, by taking immediate control of each fight he was able to make every fight the same. Slowly but surely, he maneuvered his opponent into a corner, cutting off every possible escape; then he softened him up with body blows and waited for him to drop his hands; and then—bam!—he’d land the exact knockout punch that he’d been planning all along.

In the first Straight Line syntax, and in each syntax that followed, taking immediate control of the sale was the very first step in the system, and it always will be.

Just how you go about doing that turned out to be elegantly simple, albeit with one complication:

You have only four seconds to do it.

Otherwise, you’re toast.

3

THE FIRST FOUR SECONDS

FOR BETTER OR WORSE, WE have to accept the fact that, as human beings, we’re basically fear-based creatures. We’re constantly sizing up our surroundings and making snap decisions based on how we perceive them. Is it safe? Is there danger nearby? Do we need to be extra careful about something?

This type of snap decision-making goes all the way back to our caveman days, and it’s wired into our reptilian brains. When we saw something back then, we had to size it up instantly and decide whether to stay or run. It was only after we were sure that we were safe that we’d start debating whether or not it made sense to stick around for a potential benefit.

That quick decision-making instinct is still with us today. The stakes are much lower, of course, because we don’t typically face life-or-death situations every day. But, still, the process happens just as quickly. In fact, it happens in less than four seconds over the phone, and in only a quarter of a second when you’re in person. That’s how fast the brain reacts.

Think about that: it takes only a quarter of a second for a prospect to make an initial decision about you when you meet them in person. We know this because scientists have conducted experiments where they hook people up to a certain type of MRI machine that reveals how the brain works as it’s processing information. Here’s what happens when scientists flash a test subject a picture of someone: first, the subject’s visual cortex lights up almost instantly, and then, a quarter of a second later, their prefrontal lobe lights up, which is where the judgment center of the brain is located, and a decision gets made. It happens that quickly.

During a phone call with a prospect, you have a bit longer—you have four seconds to make an impression.

To be clear, though, even when you’re in person, it still takes four seconds before a final judgment gets made. The difference is that the process starts sooner when you’re in person—literally from the first moment the prospect lays eyes on you. But, either way, whether in person or over the phone, there are three things that you need to establish in those first four seconds of an encounter, if you want to be perceived in just the right way:

1 Sharp as a tack

2 Enthusiastic as hell

3 An expert in your field

Those three things absolutely must come across in the first four seconds of a conversation; otherwise, you set yourself up for a major uphill battle.

Now, in truth, if you screw up the first four seconds, you have another ten seconds, at most, to play catch-up ball, but after that, you’re completely done. It’s basically a lost cause. You can’t influence anybody.

At this point you might be asking yourself, “What happened to not judging a book by its cover? What about that, Jordan?”

Well, my parents were actually big believers in that adage, and so were my schoolteachers.

But you know what?

They did it, and so do I; and so do you, for that matter. Each and every one of us judges books by their covers. It’s basically hardwired into our brains; and it’s not just an American thing; it’s also an Australian thing, a Chinese thing, a Brazilian thing; an Italian thing—it’s a human thing. It exists everywhere in the world, and crosses all cultural boundaries.