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

While there’s no denying that this is Sales 101, for some inexplicable reason, the average salesperson tends to gravitate towards focusing on a product’s features, not its benefits.

Now, to be clear, I’m not saying that you should never mention a product’s features; if you didn’t, you would sound totally ridiculous, as you’d just be talking about benefit after benefit after benefit, without providing your prospect with any context for what actually created the benefit. The point is that you want to briefly mention a feature, and then expand on the benefit, showing the prospect why it matters to them personally.

Remember, people are not so concerned about every feature that a product might have. They want to know if it will make their life easier, or resolve their pain, or allow them to have more time to spend with their family.

Third, your script must have stopping-off points.

If you make a powerful statement, and then another powerful statement, and then yet another powerful statement, by the time you’ve made the third powerful statement, they’ve all started to blend in with one another, and they lose their power. This is why a well-written script has an abundance of stopping-off points, where the prospect will interact with you and affirm that you’re still on the same page.

In other words, after you make a powerful statement, you want to lock it down by asking the prospect a simple yes-or-no question, such as: “You follow me so far?” or “Make sense?” or “Are you with me?” By doing this, not only do you keep the prospect engaged in the conversation but you also get them into the habit of saying yes, which creates consistency.

In addition, these little stopping-off points serve as periodic rapport checks. For example, if you say to your prospect “Make sense so far?” and they reply “Yes,” then you’re in rapport; however, if they reply, “No,” then you’re out of rapport, and you can’t move forward in the script until you’ve gotten to the bottom of things. If you do, then your prospect will be thinking: “This guy couldn’t care less about what I’m saying; he’s just looking to make a commission.”

So, instead of moving forward, you’re going to loop back and give your prospect a little more information that relates to that topic, and then ask them again if things make sense so far. Once they say yes—which they almost always will in this case—you can then safely move forward.

Fourth, write in the spoken word, not grammatically correct English.

You want to be speaking in a casual manner, using layman’s terms, not in formal English or using overly technical lingo.

In other words, when you read the script, the writing itself should sound totally natural, with the prose written in a manner as if you were speaking to a friend and trying to connect with them emotionally, not just logically.

Now, on the flip side, remember that you still have to sound like an expert. So there’s a balance to be struck. It’s not all like: “Hey, buh, buh, buh. We are like, these, them, dos and don’ts”—like a Brooklyn guy who’s not educated, right? You still want to sound educated, like an expert. But don’t try to talk above your prospect by using too many technical buzz phrases; that’s about as surefire of a way I know to get someone to tune out.

Rather, you want to use colloquialisms whenever possible, and use contractions to keep your prose sounding natural and snappy. But you can never forget that your commitment to sounding natural is always in the context of being perceived as an expert.

Fifth, your script must flow perfectly.

When I write a new script, I always go through at least four or five drafts before I lock in a final version. This gives me a chance to test the script out—first by reading it out loud to myself, to identify any obvious glitches in the rhythm or flow of the various language patterns. For example, are there any tongue-twisters in the prose or sentences that are out of balance, in terms of the number of syllables or beats they contain? Are there any awkward transitions that need to be smoothed out?

I will then rewrite the script, fixing the glitches I found, and then repeat the process again, until I’m absolutely certain that every single word flows like silk.

By doing that, I ensure that even a rookie salesperson can use the script and sound totally awesome. To that end, one of the key elements that I always make it a point to focus on very closely is balance, in terms of the number of syllables and the number of beats in each sentence.

You see, if a sentence is out of balance, the human ear will immediately sense that something doesn’t sound right, and after just a few repetitions, it will tune out.

Sixth, your scripts must be honest and ethical.