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

“In other words, do you think Mel, as the director, said, ‘Okay, what we’re going to do here is line up a couple of thousand extras in that open field over there, and then I’m gonna set up all the cameras in just the right places, and wait for the sun to be at just the right angle, and then right when I give them the cue to flee, I just ride out there on my horse and motivate the hell out of them and convince them to stay, so they can kick some serious redcoat ass!’

“Now, if any director were to actually do that, just imagine what would come out of Mel Gibson’s mouth when he galloped onto the field, especially if he had a couple of drinks in him!

“But, of course, no director would ever do something so reckless. With only one shot for a character to say exactly the right thing, they ensure their success by hiring an expert screenwriter to come up with the perfect lines for the character to say, and then they hire a world-class actor (Mel didn’t have to look far when casting himself), who will not only memorize his lines but also use perfect tonality and body language to bring the scene to life.”

So, what’s the moral of the story?

Well, there’s actually more than one, but the point I was trying to drive home was that if you’re part of that group of salespeople who think that, by their very nature, scripts are going to cause you to sound wooden or inauthentic—making it extremely difficult to get into rapport with your prospects and move them emotionally—then you need to consider one very simple fact, which is:

Since the time that you were old enough to talk, every single movie or TV show that made you laugh or cry or scream or shout, or that got you so deeply invested in the characters that you ended up binge-watching the entire series in a single weekend; every last one of them was scripted.

In fact, even the reality shows you watch—which use the authenticity that supposedly comes from being an unscripted show as a powerful tool to drive viewership—are all scripted!

You see, it didn’t take long for the producers of these shows to realize that when they didn’t hand the reality stars a script of some kind, and they let them wing it instead, the end product was so awful and tedious that the show became unwatchable.

So if you want to hang on to the false belief that using a script is going to make you sound wooden and inauthentic, because sounding wooden and inauthentic is an inherent characteristic of using a script, then you need to ignore the fact that you’ve spent about half of your life being made to laugh and cry and scream and shout as a result of—yes, you got it: scripts!

The key to success here is actually twofold: first, you need to become proficient in the art of reading from a script without sounding like you’re reading from a script; and second, you need to become proficient in the art of writing a script that will allow you to sound perfectly natural when you read it.

In Straight Line parlance, we refer to this process as strategic preparation. It’s an attitude that borders on overpreparation. In short, the philosophy of strategic preparation is based on anticipating everything that might possibly come up in a sale and having the best possible response to it prepared in advance.

In fact, that’s what the rest of this chapter is all about: the construction and delivery of a Straight Line script.

So let’s start by going through the eight things that set Straight Line scripts apart from everything else out there. In essence, these are the key features that must be in place in order for your script to be effective.

First, your script must not be front-loaded.

Front-loading is when you disclose all your major benefits right up front, which leaves you with nothing powerful to say to change your prospect’s mind when they hit you with the first objection.

This is one of the biggest mistakes salespeople make: they think they have to mention every single benefit when they make their initial sales presentation. In consequence, they end up with a script that’s a mile long, and the prospect is zoned out before they’re even halfway through. The key to writing a great script is to frame, not front-load.

It’s like framing out a new house: you have to do it in stages. First you put up the actual frame, then the drywall, then the paint. It’s the same thing with a sale. You can’t expect to close so soon. There are going to be objections, so be prepared for a prolonged battle. You have to get your foundation in place first.

In essence, human beings are not built in a way where we go from zero to 100 mph in one shot. There have to be these little stopping-off points, where we can take a deep breath and consolidate our thoughts. In other words, the way you raise someone’s level of certainty is bit by bit; you can’t do it all at once.

Second, focus on the benefits, not the features.