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

This is why we often find ourselves in situations where we’re trying to close someone whose responses indicate that they’re in a state of absolutely certainty (for all three of the Three Tens), yet we still can’t get them over the line. Instead, they keep hopping from objection to objection, saying things like: “Let me think about it” or “Let me call you back” or “Send me some information,” and so on.

So, what do you do in those cases?

The answer is, you lower your prospect’s action threshold, right on the spot.

In total, there are four ways to do this.

The first way is to offer your prospect a money-back guarantee. This is a very simple, very common strategy that’s used in countless different industries. It’s especially prevalent on the Internet, where the chance of not getting what you thought you were paying for is significantly higher than in the offline marketplace, due to the presence of a large number of overseas vendors and unlicensed resellers.

The second way is to offer your prospect a cooling off or rescission period. This is a contractual feature that allows a prospect to make a binding decision now, but then reverse that decision for up to five business days. This is common in certain regulated industries, like real estate and vacation sales. While rescission periods are typically mandated by either a state or federal regulatory agency, that doesn’t change the fact that they can still be used as a very powerful closing tool.

The third way is to use certain key phrases that paint a picture that runs counter to the worries and concerns that a typical high–action-threshold prospect ruminates on. Some examples of this are: “I’ll hold your hand every step of the way” . . . “We pride ourselves on long-term relationships” . . . “We have blue-chip customer service.”

And the fourth, and most effective way by far, is to use a very powerful language pattern that allows you to temporarily “reverse” a high–action-threshold prospect’s parallel movies—causing them to abandon their strategy of running an unrealistically long negative movie and an extremely abbreviated positive one.

In other words, at the end of the day, the difference between my father and me is that, as a low–action-threshold person, my beliefs are such that when I’m faced with making a buying decision, I’ll run a very long and very empowering positive movie, and a very short and not very toxic negative one. Conversely, as a very high–action-threshold person, my father’s beliefs are such that, when he’s faced with making a buying decision, he’ll run a very long and very toxic negative movie, and a very short and very uninspiring positive one.

The way you go about reversing these movies is by using the aforementioned language pattern to rewrite their respective scripts along the lines of a low-action-threshold individual.

Here is an example of what you would say to Bill, if he were still sitting on the fence as a result of having an extremely high action threshold:

“Bill, let me ask you an honest question: what’s the worst that can possibly happen here? I mean, let’s say I’m wrong and the stock actually goes down a few points, and you lose two thousand bucks. Is that gonna put you in the poorhouse?”

“No,” Bill replies a bit grudgingly.

“Exactly,” you continue. “Of course it won’t! And, on the upside, let’s say I’m right—like we both think I am—and the stock goes up fifteen or twenty points, like we both think it will, and you make fifteen or twenty grand. I mean, it’ll feel good and everything, but it’s not gonna make you the richest man in town, now will it?”

“No, definitely not,” replies Bill.

“Exactly! Of course it won’t. It’s not gonna make you rich, and it’s not gonna make you poor, but what this trade will do is serve as a benchmark for future business. It’ll show you that I can put you into the market at the right time, and take you out as well. So why don’t we do this:

“Since this is our first time working together, why don’t we start off a bit smaller this time. Instead of picking up a block of ten thousand shares, let’s pick up a block of a thousand shares, which is now a cash outlay of only thirty thousand dollars. Of course, you’ll make a bit less money as the stock trades higher, but your percentage gain remains the same, and you can judge me on that alone; and believe me, Bill, if you do even half as well as the rest of my clients in this program, the only problem you’re going to have is that you didn’t buy more. Sound fair enough?” And then you shut up and wait for a response.

In other words, if the prospect doesn’t quickly answer, don’t feel compelled to fill the conversational vacuum and start jabbering away and talking through your close.