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

And, just like that, you’ve formally closed out the last pattern, which you’ll now use as a launchpad for the new one—putting a slight pause between the two to de-emphasize your sudden shift in tonality, from absolute certainty to one of mystery and intrigue.

You see, you’re about to ask Bill a very profound question, using the tonality of mystery and intrigue in a way that will cause Bill to hear the following unspoken words: “A very interesting question just popped into my mind, out of nowhere, so it’s obviously totally unrelated to my last question, as well as to your answer about loving my product, so feel free to answer it as if I had asked it to you in a vacuum!”

Now, of course, none of that is true, so you would never say such a thing; but by simply implying that through tonality, it will reduce any suspicions that may be building up over all the questions you’re asking, especially since they’re about to get a lot more pointed, starting now:

“Exactly!” you shot back, finishing your last pattern. “The stock really is a screaming buy down here!” Then you pause for a brief instant and switch to your mystery and intrigue tonality, and you say, “Now, Bill, let me ask you another question.” And now you switch to your money-aside tonality. “If I’d been your broker for the last three or four years, making you money on a consistent basis”—and now you switch to your implied obviousness—“then you probably wouldn’t be saying, ‘Let me think about it right now, [your first name].’ You’d be saying, ‘Pick me up a block of at least a few thousand shares.’ ” And then you switch to the reasonable man tone and you add, “Am I right?”

Now, what you’ll find here is that at least 95 percent of your prospects will come totally clean with you at this point, saying something short and sweet, like: “Yeah, well, then I would” or “Obviously! I mean, who wouldn’t then, right?” or “Yeah, that would be a whole different thing.”

Whatever variation you ultimately hear, at the end of the day, they all boil down to the same reality—that your prospect has just admitted that trust, or a lack thereof, is now the cornerstone issue for him, not a cornerstone issue.

In other words, once your prospects openly admit that they love your product, it significantly increases the importance of them openly admitting that it’s trust that’s holding them back from buying; and, taking it one step further, once they do admit that—that it’s actually a lack of trust that’s holding them back, not that bogus objection they hit you with—you’ve now cut to the heart of what the Straight Line System is all about, which is: pushing aside all the stalls and smoke screens (that cause the average salesperson to plunge into a rapport-breaking death spiral) so you get to the heart of what’s really holding your prospect back, which is either a lack of certainty for one of the Three Tens, an extremely high action threshold, or a very low pain threshold. That’s it.

Now, for that annoying 5 percent of prospects who reject your hypothesis—that it’s actually a lack of trust that’s holding them back, not some bogus objection—you’re going to come at them with everything you’ve got.

Obviously, that doesn’t entail snapping at Bill, in an angry, pissed-off tone: “Wait a second, moron—it’s time to stop screwing around . . .” Instead, your voice is going to take on an almost mocking tone, mixed with complete incredulity. You’re basically calling him out on his bullshit in a way that will earn his respect. You’re going to say:

“Wait a second, Bill: you mean to tell me that if I put you into Union Carbide at 7 and took you out at 32, and I put you into U.S. Steel at 16 and took you out at 41, and I put you into Facebook at 70 and took you out at 130, then you wouldn’t be saying, ‘Pick me up at least a few thousand shares of Microsoft right now, on the spot, come on’?”

And with that, Bill, along with the rest of the 5 percent, will all come clean, and respond in basically the exact same way as the other 95 percent—saying, “Yeah, well, in that case, I would.” The only difference is that many of them will answer in a slightly defensive tone, as if it wasn’t their fault for flip-flopping on their answer; it was your fault for flip-flopping on your question. It’s as if their tonality is so much as saying, “Well, why didn’t you ask me that in the first place?” But, of course, that’s precisely what you did ask them; the problem is that they weren’t expecting to be called out on their bullshit, so now they’re trying to backpedal and save face.

Whatever the case, you’re still in excellent shape right now, as their defensiveness will quickly dissipate when you begin the next pattern, and you’re now in a perfect position to close the sale—starting with the fact that you’ve successfully reframed what the sale is actually about.