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

So let’s say Bill Peterson just finished making a kick-ass sales presentation to John Smith, during which he explained to him his product’s myriad benefits and why they’re a perfect solution to the challenges Mr. Smith is facing, to which Mr. Smith completely agreed—giving Bill all the right signals throughout the entire sales presentation.

So, all Bill has to do now is lay out a closing scenario, explaining the various steps that Mr. Smith needs to take to get the ball rolling, and then ask him for the order.

To that end, Bill says to Mr. Smith:

“Now, John, here’s what I need you to do: first, I need you to give me your full name, your social security number, your address, your driver’s license number, and then I want you to go to the post office, get a special first-class stamp, then take your license to a copy machine, make a copy of it, then run it over to the notary and get it notarized, and then run to the bank to get a certified check . . .” And then only after Mr. Smith has jumped through a dozen hoops and a ring of fire can he get all the amazing benefits that Bill Peterson promised him that his product would deliver.

Obviously, I’m exaggerating a bit here, but not by all that much. Most companies really miss the boat on this one—using closing scenarios that require the prospect to expend so much energy that they’ve made it close to impossible for them to end up on the right side of this equation.

By the way, never forget that money is basically nothing more than stored energy. In essence, you expend energy by engaging in some type of work, for which you receive money in return. Now, of course, some of that money ends up being used for basic living expenses—food, shelter, clothing, medical expenses, general bill paying—and the rest of it you deposit in the bank, where it represents stored energy that can be unleashed in any way you wish, at a moment’s notice.

In consequence, when you ask someone to take action and send you their hard-earned money, you’re asking them to expend their stored energy, so you want to be sure to offset that energy expenditure by highlighting all the valuable benefits that they’re going to receive in return.

In essence, you want to crystallize the fact that once they say yes they’re going to receive a massive number of valuable benefits, and the amount of energy they’ll have to expend will be considerably lower.

By the way, one company that does this just about as well as a company can possibly do it is Amazon. With their one-click buying option, they’ve made it so ridiculously easy for a customer to receive a product’s benefits that you start to feel that it’s simply too much of a hassle to buy from anyone else.

Even more telling, what Amazon has found is that if their customers are forced to click even one more time, to go to a different landing page, they will lose a major percentage of their buyers; and if a customer has to click a third time, their conversion rate drops through the floor. That’s how important this equation is to people making a positive buying decision.

Let’s go back to the example of Bill Peterson and John Smith—except, this time, let’s change the language pattern to reflect a very different type of closing scenario:

“Now, John, getting started here is very, very simple. It’s just a question of your name, some basic information, and then we handle everything else for you over on this end. And when you combine that with [benefit #1] and [benefit #2] and [benefit #3], then, believe me, John, the only problem you’re going to have is that you didn’t buy more. Sound fair enough?”

That’s a very low energy in, massive benefits out close, and it can be easily adapted to any industry.

However, one thing I need to point out is that sometimes you’re going to find yourself in a situation where the process or the product you’re selling is actually not all that simple to get started. An example might be in banking or mortgages, where there are hoops to jump through and a lot of paperwork.

So, while you can’t say something is simple when it’s actually very complicated, you can still make it clear to your prospect that you will do everything in your power to make the process as simple as possible for them.

Now, before we move on, let’s quickly go through the process of how to handle buy signals when they arise in the back half of the sale. In other words, as your prospect starts to become more and more certain about the Three Tens, they will start sending you signals that they are interested in buying, in the form of leading questions about the closing process.

For example, the prospect might say, “How much did you say it would run me?” or “How long will it take until I receive the product?” or “How long until I start to see results?” Those are just a few examples of the more common buy signals.