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

The bottom line is that, at that very moment, the pain he was experiencing from the possibility of his family being in danger caused his action threshold to drop straight through the floor, and, just like that, he was transformed into one of the easiest buyers in the world.

This is why you introduce pain in two spots: first, during the intelligence-gathering phase, you want to identify where your prospect’s pain lies and, if necessary, amplify it to ensure that your prospect listens to your presentation from that perspective; and second, you’re going to reintroduce that pain right now, at the beginning of your third loop, using a language pattern that sounds something like this:

“Now, Bill, I know you said before that you’re worried about your retirement in terms of Social Security not . . .” and so forth, and then you’re going to raise the level of pain by asking your prospect what they think is going to happen with the situation if they fail to take action to fix it.

Using an empathetic tone, you would say: “Bill, let me ask you a question. Given how things have been deteriorating over the last twelve months, where do you see yourself in a year from now? Or, even worse, five years from now? Are things going to be even more intense, in terms of all the sleepless nights and the worrying?” And make sure that you maintain a very sympathetic tone throughout the entire pattern.

If you do, nine times out of ten, your prospect will say something like: “At best, I’ll be in the same spot I’m in right now, but it’ll probably be a lot worse.”

And that’s your chance to say, in the I care and I feel your pain tonality: “I get it, Bill. I’ve been around the block a couple of thousand times now, and I know that these things typically don’t resolve themselves unless you take serious action to resolve them.

“In fact, let me say this: one of the true beauties here is that . . . ,” and now you’re going to quickly resell the Three Tens, using a concise yet very powerful consolidation of the tertiary language patterns that you created for each of the Three Tens, which will focus almost exclusively on the emotional side of the equation—using the technique of future pacing to paint your prospect that all-important pain-free picture of the future, where he can actually see himself using your product and getting the exact benefits he was promised and feeling great as a result of that; and, from there, you’re going to transition directly into a soft close and ask for the order again.

Remember, with the exception of your first loop, in which you deflected your prospect’s initial objection, your loops are always going to start by answering whatever new objection your prospect hopped to, using one of the dozens of proven rebuttals in the accompanying online resource,^III albeit with a tacit understating that, no matter how awesome a rebuttal might sound, the only thing it’s going to do is earn you the right to speak more; it’s what you say after the rebuttal that’s going to persuade your prospect to close.

Now, at this point, if the prospect sticks to the same objection, then you should thank them and let them move on with their life. After all, you don’t want to be a high-pressure salesman and keep running loop after loop after loop after loop.

In terms of the maximum number of loops you can run, from a theoretical perspective, the number is infinite, but I strongly suggest that you don’t push the envelope like that. The reality is that you’ll know by your prospect’s demeanor when it’s time to move on. If they start getting edgy or they’re laughing overtly because they feel pressured, then you’ve gone too far.

In fact, as soon as you sense that your prospect is feeling even the slightest bit pressured, you immediately want to pull back and say something along the lines of: “Jim, please don’t misconstrue my enthusiasm for pressure; it’s just that I know that this truly is a perfect fit for you . . . ,” and now you have two options.

Option one is to use this as an opportunity to loop back into the sale, yet again, and give it one more shot—paying very close attention to your tonality and body language as well as the tonality and body language of your prospect. In your case, you want steer clear of any unconscious communication that speaks of either absolute certainty or bottled enthusiasm, and focus on utter sincerity and “I feel your pain.” In the case of your prospect, you want to focus on both their conscious and unconscious communication, and if either one signals that they’re feeling pressured or perturbed in the slightest way, then I would immediately transition to option number two.