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

Now let’s talk about the other side of the equation—where after gathering all the necessary intelligence, you’re 100 percent certain that your product can resolve your prospect’s pain and improve the quality of their life.

In that case, you would use a simple transition like this:

“Well, John, based on everything you just said to me, this program is definitely a perfect fit for you. Let me tell you why . . .” Or you could substitute the word “product” for “program”—or use the actual name of either one.

In that case, it would sound like this:

“Well, John, based on everything you just said to me, the 64-inch Samsung is definitely the perfect fit for you. Let me tell you why . . .” And from there, you’ll go directly into the main body of your sales presentation.

Rule #10: Stay on the Straight Line; don’t go spiraling off to Pluto.

In 2009, I was hired by a London-based seminar provider to do a private sales training for the company’s twenty young salesmen, who were struggling so badly that they could barely close a door.

When I was maybe halfway through the first day of training, I passed by one of the salesmen’s desks and heard him going off on some crazy tangent about duck hunting in the marshes of southern England.

As it turned out, the subject of duck hunting had been raised by his prospect in response to a standard intelligence-gathering question that the salesman had asked him a few minutes earlier, a standard question that had absolutely nothing to do with shooting a bunch of innocent ducks. (The question he’d asked was: “What kind of work are you currently doing?”)

And, to be clear, the prospect didn’t start his response by talking about duck hunting; rather, he answered the question that he was asked—telling the salesman that he was mid-level manager at a clothing manufacturer in Kent—but then rather than leaving it at that, the prospect decided to spiral off to Pluto by segueing into a long, drawn-out story about how the duck hunting in the Kent marshes was the best in all of England.

In truth, these sorts of compound answers, where the prospect starts by answering your question and then finishes by spiraling off to Pluto, are very common during the intelligence-gathering phase and are in no way problematic.

What is problematic, however, is the disingenuous way in which the salesman handled it.

“Oh my god!” he exclaimed, as if he were completely bowled over. “What a coincidence this is! I love duck hunting too! What are the odds—I mean—for you and me to both love duck hunting? I can’t even begin to tell you how much . . .” And on and on the salesman went, going back and forth with his prospect for fifteen minutes—fifteen minutes!—spewing out a bunch of nonsense about the exhilaration one gets from taking potshots at a bunch of innocent ducks who can’t shoot back.

Now, don’t get me wrong: I’m not against duck hunting any more than I’m for it, although I would like to think that if you’re going to take the life of an unsuspecting duck, you’d at least have the common courtesy to then baste the little guy in orange sauce and make him into a gourmet meal. Either way, what’s far more important is that you understand just how misguided this salesman’s strategy was. Let me explain what I mean.

A moment after the salesman slammed his phone down in defeat, he turned to me and muttered, “Damn it! I was so close. I can’t believe I let that one slip away.”

“No, you weren’t close,” I replied flatly. “You never had a shot. You were too busy talking about duck hunting. I assume you made all that shit up, right? I mean, you don’t exactly strike me as the duck hunting type. Where are you from, India?”

“Sri Lanka,” he replied meekly, looking down at the floor to avoid making eye contact.

“Sri Lanka. Not exactly the world’s duck hunting capital, now is it?” I said with a chuckle. “Anyway, why did you lie to the guy like that? What did you think you were going to accomplish?”

“I was trying to build rapport,” he said defensively, “like you said this morning.”

“Wow, lesson learned!” I said to myself. “That’s the last time I stress how important something is without also explaining how to actually do it.”

“Fair enough,” I said to the salesman. “This one’s on me. But, for the record, what you just did is the exact opposite of what I meant.”

Ten minutes later, I had the entire sales force back in the training room, and I was standing before my trusty whiteboard, filling in the blanks from my morning training session.

“Let me tell you a little something about rapport,” I said confidently. “It is by far the single most misunderstood word in the English language. In fact, what most people think constitutes rapport is actually repulsive—meaning, it repels people instead of attracting them, which is the exact opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish with rapport in the first place.