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

For example, suppose that, in response to deflecting Bill’s initial objection, he replied in an ambivalent tone: “Yeah, it sounds pretty good.”

Now, here’s a very important question: Where does Bill’s response—including his ambivalent tone—place him on the certainty scale? Is he at a 3? A 5? A 9? A 10?

Well, he’s clearly not at a 10, right?

After all, when your prospect is at a 10, you’ll definitely know it. His response will sound something like this: “Oh, yeah, absolutely! It makes total sense to me. I love the idea!” In essence, his positive bias will be so strong that his words and his tonality are dead giveaways for his ultra-high level of certainty.

The same is true of a 1 on the certainty scale, albeit in the exact opposite direction. His response, in this case, will sound something like this: “No, not at all. I think it’s one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard,” and his tone will be one of utter disgust.

While the levels in between are a bit more challenging to hit on the nose, he’s clearly not at a 2 or a 3, as either one has far more negative emotion attached to its response than Bill’s did; conversely, he’s clearly not at an 8 or a 9, as either of those levels has far more positive emotion attached.

So, where is he, then?

Where is Bill on the certainty scale based on his response?

Well, I wasn’t kidding when I said it’s a bit harder to hit those middle levels directly on the nose; but, still, based on his words and their accompanying tonality, I would say he’s somewhere around a 5 or a 6, although maybe he’s at a 4, but probably not, due to the nature of his ambivalence, which strikes me as being slightly more positive than negative.

So, based on that, and based on my years of experience at estimating my prospects’ varying levels of certainty, if I had to choose one number, I would place Bill at a 6, as opposed to a 5, although either choice won’t affect the outcome.

Now, I just gave you a purposely verbose explanation to drive home a very important point—namely, that looping is as much an art as it is a science, so there’s no need to make yourself crazy trying to figure out your prospect’s exact level of certainty based on his response.

As long as you can discern his approximate level of certainty, then you have enough information to determine if you can safely move forward towards the close, or if you need to loop back to the front half of the sale to increase your prospect’s level of certainty.

So, that being said, given the fact that I pegged Bill’s response at a 6 on the certainty scale, does it make sense for you to move forward on the Straight Line towards the close?

The answer is no, absolutely not.

A 6 is not nearly high enough on the certainty scale for Bill or, for that matter, any of your prospects to seriously consider parting with their hard-earned money to buy something; and that’s true whether they’re buying $300,000 of Microsoft stock or $500 of a penny stock; a $120,000 2017 Mercedes-Benz or a $500 ten-speed bicycle; a $90,000 state-of-the-art home theater system or a $399 forty-two-inch flat-screen TV; a $75,000 fast-food franchise or a $997 home-study course for the Straight Line System.

So, rather than moving forward and trying to close the deal, you’re going to loop back to the front half of the sale instead—to the point on the Straight Line when you had just finished delivering the main body of your Straight Line sales presentation—and make a follow-up presentation that builds on the airtight logical case that you framed during your initial presentation.

In essence, your follow-up presentation picks up right where your logical frame left off—using your most powerful benefits and coherent assertions to turn the frame into an irrefutable, inarguable, scream-from-the-hilltops airtight logical case, while you use the advanced tonality technique of pace, pace, lead to start building emotional certainty as well.

With this one particular pattern, you’re going to accomplish two crucial outcomes simultaneously: first, you’re looking to increase your prospect’s level of logical certainty to as close to a 10 as possible; and second, you’re looking to begin the process of increasing your prospect’s level of emotional certainty to as close to a 10 as possible.

Let’s go through these processes step by step, starting with Bill’s response, which landed him at a 6 on the logical certainty scale due to its ambivalent tone.

Specifically, Bill said, “Yeah, it sounds pretty good.”

To that, your standard Straight Line response will be:

“Exactly—it reallyisa great buy down here! In fact, one of thetruebeauties here is . . .” and then you’ll go directly into the main body of your follow-up presentation.