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

“You see what I’m saying here, Bill? Do you like the idea?”

Since you’ve already weeded out the last of the negative responders, you’ll always get at least some type of yes, at this point, even if your follow-up presentation was total crap. The problem with that, however, is that a basic yes is no longer good enough, because what you’re actually doing right now, with this first loop, is you’re picking the lock to Bill’s buying strategy.

Like all prospects, Bill has five numbers in his buying combination; and like all combination locks, not only do you need to know what all five numbers are, but you also need to know what order they go in.

With human beings, the first number you need to crack is the first Ten; and in order to consider it cracked, you need to hear an enthusiastic yes from your prospect that measures at least an 8 on the certainty scale, although the closer you are to a 10, the more certain you’ll be that you got the number right. However, getting your prospect to a 10 can be very difficult to do sometimes, as a true 10 represents a state of such absolute certainty that it approaches the level of a conviction, and convictions aren’t born in an instant; they take time to form, and they require repeated exposure to the same idea without a competing message to contradict it.

In consequence, getting your prospect to a 10 on the certainty scale will partially depend on the product you’re selling. For example, if you’re selling something that’s quite well-known, with an impeccable reputation—like an iPhone or a Mercedes S-Class or stock in Facebook or tech support from Microsoft or a first-class train ticket on the Orient Express or a head-to-toe checkup at the Mayo Clinic—then you have an excellent chance of getting your prospect to a 10. Conversely, if you’re selling an unbranded product that no one has ever heard of before, then a 10 is going to be a bit pie-in-the-sky.

A 9, on the other hand, is almost always doable. In fact, with only a few exceptions, you can always get a prospect to a 9 on the certainty scale, which is more than sufficient to close 99 percent of the prospects you’ll speak to. And as far as the remaining 1 percent go, you can actually close those prospects too, although I’ll circle back to them in a few minutes when we get to the fourth number in the buying combination: the action threshold.

So, that being said, you ended your follow-up presentation by saying to Bill, in a very enthusiastic tone: “You see what I’m saying here, Bill? Do you like the idea?”

To that, thanks to the irrefutable, airtight logical case you created, along with your successful implementation of pace, pace, lead, Bill’s response will be exactly what you expected (and what you can expect from most prospects, provided that the quality of your follow-up presentations continues to remain high, and you embed them with the strategy of pace, pace, lead). Bill will reply, in a very enthusiastic tone, “Absolutely! I love the idea! It makes total sense to me!” to which you’ll reply, in the same tone as Bill: “Exactly! The stock really is a screaming buy down here.” And, just like that, you’ve closed out your pattern—moving Bill both logically and emotionally, in one swift swoop.

Now, a quick question:

Given that you just raised Bill’s level of logical certainty to at least a 9 and his emotional certainty to at least a 7, does it make sense for you to take a shot and ask for the order again? After all, if it turns out that Bill has a low action threshold, isn’t there a shot that you could slide in under the wire, as the phrase goes, and close him?

The answer is no, absolutely not.

You see, while Bill’s first Ten is probably high enough now for him to justify buying, at this point in the sale all that’s going to do is make him shift his focus to the second of the Three Tens, which is you, the salesperson, insofar as that Bill must trust you and connect with you at a very high level before you have any chance of closing him. And while the rapport you’ve built will go some way towards creating that connection, there is simply no justification for Bill to trust you at even close to a level that would make him comfortable enough to buy, or at least there’s no justification yet; you’re going to have to create one.

For that, you’re going to use two very powerful language patterns that work hand in hand with each other to quickly move a prospect’s second Ten to a significantly higher level while setting you up for a seamless transition to the third Ten.

Let me take you through them one at a time—starting with Bill’s response to your follow-up presentation, which landed him at a 9 on the certainty scale for the first Ten.

“Absolutely!” he exclaimed. “I love the idea! It makes total sense to me!”

“Exactly!” you shot back. “The stock really is a screaming buy down here!”