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THE ART AND SCIENCE OF LOOPING

Since the day I invented the Straight Line System, one of the core principles that I’ve been drilling into the hearts and minds of all the people I’ve trained is that the sale doesn’t truly begin until after your prospect hits you with the first objection; only then do you have the chance to finally roll up your sleeves and earn your paycheck.

To that end, regardless of what product you’re selling, there are only three possible ways that your prospect can respond the first time you ask them for the order.

They can say:

Yes—meaning, the deal is closed and it’s time to break out the paperwork and collect payment.

In essence, these are the lay-down sales that I spoke about in Chapter 2, where the prospects are basically pre-sold before they enter the sales encounter. As salespeople, we love getting them, but, from a practical standpoint, they’re far too rare to put any stock in them as an expected outcome.

The key here is to manage your expectations.

You want to appreciate lay-downs when they come, without ever expecting them to come. This ensures that you’ll enter the back half of the sale with the same level of certainty and with the same positive mind-set that you had when you entered the front half of the sale.

No—meaning, the prospect is definitely not interested and it’s time to end the sales encounter and move on to the next prospect.

Now, in reality, if you’ve been correctly following the steps in the Straight Line Syntax, then you should almost never get hit with an outright “I’m not interested” at this point in the sale. After all, you will have already weeded out the prospects who indicated that during the intelligence-gathering phase.

In other words, the only prospects you should be presenting to at this point are those whose answers to your intelligence-gathering questions dictated that they not only were interested in your product but also needed your product and could afford your product.

So it completely defies logic that someone who ticked all those boxes would suddenly do a complete one-eighty after you just presented them with a series of benefits that were a perfect match for them.

In terms of the exact percentages, you shouldn’t expect to get hit with a flat-out no more than 1 or 2 percent of the time, which is right on par with your lay-downs.

Or maybe—meaning, the prospect is sitting on the fence and can still go either way. Maybe consists of all the common objections that salespeople typically get hit with during the back half of the sale. In total, there are somewhere between twelve and fourteen of them, although about half are just simple variations of two.

I’ve already listed them in Chapter 2, but for the sake of convenience, and also to refresh your recollection, here are the most common ones again:

“Let me think about it”; “Let me call you back”; “Send me some information”; “I’m not liquid right now”; “I have another source [or supplier or broker] I work with”; “It’s a bad time of year [including it’s tax time, it’s summer vacation time, it’s Christmastime, it’s the end of our fiscal year]”; and “I need to speak to someone else [which includes my spouse, my lawyer, my accountant, my business partner, my financial advisor].”

The Art of Deflection

Let’s say you’re a stockbroker cold-calling wealthy investors, trying to persuade them to open up a new account at your brokerage firm, XYZ Securities. The stock that you’re recommending as an opening trade is Microsoft, which is currently trading at $30 per share, and the firm minimum for opening up a new account is $3,000, or one hundred shares of Microsoft.

Using a standard two-call system, your closing rate is 30 percent—meaning, you close three out of every ten prospects who you can get on the phone a second time—and 90 percent of that 30 percent end up buying after your third or fourth time asking for the order.

From start to finish, it takes you approximately three minutes to go through the front half of the sale and between ten and fifteen minutes to go through the back half of the sale; and while the front half of the sale might strike you as being unusually short, what you need to remember here is that, with a two-call system, virtually all of your intelligence gathering and initial rapport-building gets completed on the first call, giving you a significant head start on the second call.

That is not to say that you don’t have to spend at least some amount of time reengaging your prospect when you begin the second call; but that entire process should take no more than a minute, as opposed to the five to seven minutes it takes to complete an initial call.

Specifically, the reengagement process consists of you leading your prospect, Bill Peterson, through the following steps:

1 Start your introduction by greeting Bill by his first name, and then quickly reintroduce yourself—stating your first and last name, the name of your company, and its location—and ask Bill how he’s doing today. Remember, from your very first word, your tonality must be positive and upbeat, with a hint of bottled enthusiasm slipping out around the edges.

2 Remind him that you two spoke a few days or a few weeks ago, and that you emailed him a bit of information on your company. Do not—I repeat, do not—ask him if he actually received the information or had a chance to review it, as there’s an excellent possibility that he’ll say “no” to at least one of those questions, which gives him an easy exit ramp out of the encounter. The way to avoid this is to simply ask him if the conversation “rings a bell,” to which he will almost always reply with a yes.

3 Once he does, then briefly explain to him how the last time you spoke, he asked you to give him a call the next time an extraordinary investment idea came across your desk.

4 If he replies no, then act a bit surprised, but chalk it up to the fact that he must get a ton of calls and emails each day, and then assure him that you did, in fact, speak to him, and that you did, in fact, email him some information; but there’s no need to worry, as it was just a bit of background on your company. Then complete step three—reminding him that he asked you to call him the next time you had an investment idea.

5 Explain how something just came across your desk and that it’s one of the best things you’ve seen in quite some time now, and if he has sixty seconds, you’d like to share the idea with him.

6 Complete your introduction by saying “Got a minute?” using the reasonable man tone.I

Here is how the reengagement process looks in script form, showing a prospect’s typical responses as well:

You: Hi, is Bill there?

Your Prospect: Yeah, this is Bill.

You: Hey, Bill! It’s John Smith, calling from XYZ Securities, on Wall Street. How you doing today?

Your Prospect: I’m okay.

You: Okay, great! Now, Bill, if you recall, we spoke a few weeks back, and I emailed you a bit of information on my company, XYZ Securities, along with some links to a few of our recent stock recommendations. Does that ring a bell?

Your Prospect: Uh, yeah, I think so.

You: Okay, great! Now, Bill, the last time we spoke, I promised to get back to you when I came across an investment idea that had huge upside potential with very little downside risk. Well, the reason for the call today is that something just came across my desk, and it’s perhaps the best thing I’ve seen in the last six months. If you have sixty seconds, I’d like to share the idea with you. You got a minute?

And that’s it.

From there, you’re going to smoothly transition into the main body of your presentation, adhering to the rules and guidelines laid out in the previous chapter, on script building, and then you’ll close out the front half of the sale by directly asking for the order for the first time, in no uncertain terms—meaning, there’s no beating around the bush or kind of asking for the order; you’re flat-out asking for it, saying something along the lines of: “Bill, here’s what I want you to do: pick up a block of ten thousand shares of Microsoft at thirty dollars a share. It’s a cash outlay of three hundred thousand dollars, or half that on margin . . .” And then complete your closing pattern.

Now, in reality, this is a far bigger investment than you expect your prospect to ultimately make; however, by asking for such a large commitment on the first go-round, you now have the opportunity to incrementally lower that amount with each new closing attempt—timing the reductions so that, on your final closing attempt, you’re asking your prospect for the firm’s minimum commitment for opening a new account.

In general sales parlance, we refer to this strategy as a step-down sale, and it can be a powerful closing tool for products where you can easily ratchet up or ratchet down the amount of the purchase. For example, in Bill’s case, when you ask him for the order for the second time, you would step him down from ten thousand shares to five thousand shares, which reduces the energy-in aspect of the closing equation by 50 percent, after you just increased the benefits-out side of the equation during your follow-up presentation. This creates an extremely powerful one-two punch that will significantly increase your closing rate. And, of course, on your third closing attempt, you would step down to a thousand shares . . . and then down to five hundred shares on your fourth attempt, going all the way down to whatever the firm’s minimum is for opening up a new account.

Now, remember, on your initial closing attempt, you fully expect to be hit with one of the common objections, so your inner monologue should be saying, “Ahhh, just as expected! A smoke screen for uncertainty! It’s time to roll up my sleeves and earn my paycheck!” In terms of which objection your prospect chooses, it doesn’t even matter, because you’re going to respond to all the common objections in exactly the same way.

For example, let’s say Bill replies, “It sounds interesting. Let me think about it.”

To that, you’ll answer with the standard Straight Line response to an initial objection, which is: “I hear what you’re saying, Bill, but let me ask you a question: Does the idea make sense to you? Do you like the idea?”

Similarly, if Bill had said, “I need to speak to my accountant,” then you would’ve said, “I hear what you’re saying, Bill, but let me ask you a question: Does the idea make sense to you? Do you like the idea?”

And, once again, if he had said, “It’s a bad time of year,” then you would’ve said, “I hear what you’re saying, Bill, but let me just ask you a question: Does the idea make sense to you? Do you like the idea?”

In other words, no matter which of the twelve to fourteen common objections your prospect initially hits you with, you are always going to answer in exactly the same way.

You’re going to say:

“I hear what you’re saying, Bill, but let me ask you a question: Does the idea make sense to you? Do you like the idea?”

Now, notice how, rather than directly answering his objection, you deflected it instead.

Specifically, you acknowledged the fact that you heard what Bill said to you—to ensure that he didn’t feel ignored, which would cause a break in rapport—and then you shifted the conversation in a more productive direction, which was to find out where he stood on the certainty scale for the first of the Three Tens, which is your product.

In Straight Line parlance, we refer to this process as deflection, and it comprises step number six of the Straight Line Syntax. In essence, when you deflect a prospect’s initial objection, you’re avoiding answering it head-on by using a two-step process:

Step one consists of a simple, five-word language pattern—I hear what you’re saying—which you’ve infused with the reasonable man tonality.II

Your words let the prospect know that you’ve heard his objection (and, hence, you’re not ignoring him), and your tonality lets the prospect know that you fully respect his right to feel that way, which ensures that you remain in very tight rapport.

Step two consists of another simple language pattern—Let me ask you a question: Does the idea makes sense to you? Do you like the idea?—which you’ve infused with the money-aside tonality.

So, again, your words are redirecting the conversation to a far more productive track, which, in this particular case, is to ascertain Bill’s current level of certainty about Microsoft being a good buy right now; and your tonality ensures that he doesn’t feel pressured by your question—that if he admits that he likes your product, you’re not going to use his admission against him to pressure him to buy. After all, if he feels that way, then he’ll significantly tone down his level of enthusiasm as he responds, which is the last thing you want your prospect to be doing at this point.

Why?

Well, quite simply, while a basic yes is enough to move forward during the front half of the sale, you need an enthusiastic yes to move forward during the back half of the sale.

The reason for this is that the level of enthusiasm of your prospect’s yes is going to serve as your primary means for measuring his level of certainty for each of the Three Tens.

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 really is a great buy down here! In fact, one of the true beauties here is . . .” and then you’ll go directly into the main body of your follow-up presentation.

Similarly, if your prospect had said, “I guess so. It sounds okay,” in the sort of dismissive tone that would have placed him at a 4 on the certainty scale, then you would say, “Exactly—it really is a great buy down here! In fact, one of the true beauties here is . . .”

And, once again, if he’d said, “Absolutely! It sounds like a great investment,” in the sort of enthusiastic tone that would have placed him at an 8 or even a 9 on the certainty scale, then you would say, “Exactly—it really is a great buy down at this level! In fact, one of the true beauties here is . . .”

In essence, just like the process of deflection, no matter how your prospect answers, and no matter where that answer lands him on the certainty scale, you’re always going to respond with the exact same words; what’s going to change, however, is your tonality.

Let me quickly explain.

Remember the story I told you about my son, Carter, being upset after soccer practice, and how I was able to quickly calm him down by using the tonal strategy of pace, pace, lead?

Well, that’s exactly what you’re going to do now—starting with the strategy’s first step, which is to enter your prospect’s world where he is, and then you’ll pace him, and you’ll pace him, and then you’ll lead him in the direction that you want him to go.

For example, since the tonality in Bill’s answer was at a 6 on the certainty scale, you wouldn’t reply to him at a 10. (If you did, you’d instantly break rapport and be viewed as a high-pressure salesman.) Rather, you would reply at a level just above a 6—like a 6.2 or a 6.3—so that you’re nudging him ever so slightly in the direction you want him to go, but you’re still entering his world where he is. From there, you’re going to transition into the main body of your follow-up presentation, where you’re going to pace him, and then pace him, and then you’re going to lead him in the direction that you want him to go by slowly increasing the level of certainty in your tone—timing it so that you hit your peak tonality about halfway through the pattern; then you’ll maintain that tonality of absolute certainty straight to the end.

The one exception to this is if your prospect’s response is below a 3 on the certainty scale. In that case, you’re going to end the encounter right then and there and move on to the next prospect. After all, a prospect who still feels that negative about your product after you just completed framing your airtight logical case is not a real buyer. In fact, you’re probably dealing with either a lookie-loo or someone with a warped sense of humor, as that level of negativity should have definitely come out during the intelligence-gathering phase and would have been weeded out accordingly.

It’s for that very reason that responses below a 3 are extremely rare at this point. For the most part, you’re going to be dealing with responses that fall between a 5 and a 7, with approximately 10 percent landing on either side.

Now, remember, deciding where your prospect landed on the certainty scale is not an exact science, so you need to use your common sense here. For example, if you’ve pegged your prospect at a 2 on the certainty scale, but something in your gut tells you that he still might be a buyer, then you want to repeat his negative answer back to him in an incredulous tone, and then ask again if that’s how he truly feels about your product. If he responds anywhere above a 5, then you can start moving forward, albeit warily, as the philosophy of not trying to turn nos into yeses will continue to apply throughout the entire back half of the sale, with anything less than a 3 being the cutoff.

Of course, on the flip side, for every response above that, you’ll transition into your follow-up presentation, using the same proven language pattern every time.

You’re going to say, “Exactly! It really is a great buy at this level! In fact, one of the true beauties here is . . .” and then you’ll go directly into your follow-up presentation, which must be so utterly compelling that even the most skeptical of prospects will have no choice but to become logically certain after hearing it.

In all seriousness, I can’t even begin to overestimate the importance of this language pattern. It needs to make perfect sense from every angle—mathematically, economically, logistically, the value proposition, the benefit stack, the pain resolution, the energy expenditure, along with your strategic use of maximizers and minimizers and justifiers and power words and comparisons and metaphors and trustworthy figures—and then be flawlessly delivered, using the strategy of pace, pace, lead to create emotional certainty as well.

To complete the pattern, you’re going to check in with your prospect by asking the same leading question every time (maintaining your peak tonality, from pace, pace, lead), which will allow you to gauge the increase in certainty for the first Ten. You’re going to ask:

“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!”

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.

You see, while Bill’s original objection was “Let me think about it,” rather than acting like every other salesperson and asking him the dead-end question “So, tell me, Bill, precisely what do you need to think about?” you took control of the sale and started picking the lock on his buying strategy.

Your prospect, on the other hand, is completely taken aback, because you’ve come at him in an entirely different manner than he’s used to—including answering his objections before they even came up. Case in point: his real objection is that he doesn’t know you, and therefore has no basis for trusting you; yet somehow you were able to bring that to the surface in a very elegant way. All you have to do now is figure out a way to get around that, which means convincing someone who you’ve only known for five or six minutes, and who you may have never met in person, and who may live on the other side of the country or, for that matter, the world, to trust you at a reasonably high level in the next sixty seconds.

It seems like a rather daunting task, doesn’t it?

Well, believe it or not, it’s actually quite simple—thanks to the existence of an extremely powerful language pattern that takes its name from the only person who possesses an IQ of 65 yet has still managed to get himself invited to the White House on three separate occasions to accept various achievement awards—including one for engaging in Ping-Pong diplomacy with China.

If you haven’t already guessed, the remarkable individual I’m talking about here is none other than that Ping-Pong-playing, cross- country-running, premature-ejaculating, Jenny-loving fool named Forrest Gump, whose six-year-old incarnation served as the inspiration for the very language pattern that proudly bears his name: the Forrest Gump pattern.

Now, I think it’s safe to assume that, unless you’ve been living in North Korea for the last twenty years, you’ve seen the movie at least twice by now, and probably three times.

Either way, there’s a scene at the beginning where young Forrest is waiting for the bus to arrive on his first day of school, and he’s standing there in his little leg braces, staring off into space, as he typically does. Then, suddenly, the bus pulls up, and all at once the door opens and Forrest looks up at the bus driver, and she looks down at him, and he just stands there, like a deer frozen in headlights, and he doesn’t get on the bus.

The bus driver, a gruff-looking woman with a cigarette dangling from her mouth, is apparently not aware of who she’s dealing with yet, so she says, in a brusque tone: “Are you coming on?”

To which Forrest replies, “Momma said not to be taking rides from strangers.”

As she begins to realize what she’s dealing with, the bus driver softens her tone a bit and says, “Well, this is the bus to school.”

But, alas, this doesn’t solve Forrest’s core problem—that the bus driver is a stranger—so he just stands there, looking up at the lady sitting behind the wheel, who’s looking back down at him, not sure what to do.

Suddenly, a wonderful inspiration sweeps over Forrest, and he figures out a way to break the deadlock with the simplest of phrases. He says, “My name is Forrest; Forrest Gump.”

Impressed by the simplicity of Forrest’s solution, the bus driver offers him a warm smile, and she replies, “Well, my name’s Dorothy, and I’m your bus driver.”

To that, Forrest shoots back: “Well, I guess we’re not strangers anymore.” And, feeling totally comfortable, he now gets on the bus.

Now, that’s obviously a very simple example, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s incredibly profound. You see, as a species, this is how human beings are built. When we’ve reached the tipping point, we can go from complete and utter distrust to an extremely high level of trust in a matter of seconds; yet, if you were to analyze these extreme swings on either side, you’d find that the truth typically lies somewhere in the middle, especially in a sales setting.

For example, over the years, I’ve been in literally thousands of situations where a prospect who’d been skeptical at the beginning, to the point of being hostile, would be cooking me a five-course meal thirty minutes later, as they went about calling their friends and relatives to tell them how they’d just met the world’s greatest mortgage broker and that their friends should refinance their homes through me too—despite the fact that I hadn’t done anything yet that was even close to warranting that type of glowing endorsement.

But, again, that’s how human beings are built, especially in a sales setting. When that trust pendulum starts to swing, it swings all the way. The key to get it swinging is to take the time to write out a powerful Forrest Gump pattern before you enter the sales encounter.

So, let’s go through that right now, picking up exactly where we left off—when Bill admitted that it was actually a lack of trust that’s holding him back, not his original objection. And while his response was short and sweet—“Yeah, well, in that case, I would”—that doesn’t take away from how profound it was. In fact, not only do those five simple words mark a major turning point in the sale but they also mark the point where you’re going to begin your next pattern.

You’re going to say, in a sympathetic tone: “Now, that I can understand. You don’t know me, and I don’t have the luxury of a track record; so let me take a moment to reintroduce myself.

“My name is [your first and last name], and I’m a [your title] at [the name of your company], and I’ve been there for [actual number] years, and I pride myself on . . .”

And now you’re going to tell your prospect a little bit about yourself—citing any degrees you have, any licenses you have, any special talents you have, any awards you’ve won, what your goals are at the company, what you stand for as a person in terms of ethics and integrity and customer service, and how you can be an asset to him and his family over the long term.

In addition, in the same way that you took as much time as you needed to write out the best possible version of yourself, you also wrote out a secondary and a tertiary version as well. This will ensure that you can keep talking about yourself intelligently if the sale drags on, forcing you to execute additional loops.

So, you’ve now resold your product, which is the first of the Three Tens; you’ve resold yourself, which is the second of the Three Tens; and now it’s time to resell the company that stands behind your product, which is the third of the Three Tens. And the way you’re going to do that is by moving directly from the Forrest Gump pattern to a new pattern that has been designed to do precisely that—namely, to increase your prospect’s level of certainty for the third Ten.

In other words, when you reach the end of the Forrest Gump pattern, rather than asking your prospect a question (like you’ve done with your previous patterns), you’re going to move straight into your new pattern for reselling the company—using the following seven words as your transition: “And as far as my company goes . . .”

For example, let’s say that the last point you were trying to get across to Bill with your Forrest Gump pattern was that not only are you going to tell him when to buy but you’re also going to tell him when to sell. Here’s how you would tack on your seven-word transition to the end of your Forrest Gump pattern. You would say:

“Not only am I going to guide you into the idea, but I’m going to guide you out as well. And as far as my company, XYZ Securities, goes, it’s one of the most well respected . . .”

In essence, it’s a seamless transition, where you’re reselling the third Ten directly on the heels of reselling the second Ten.

Now, in order to create a kick-ass language pattern for your third Ten, you should follow the same protocol that I just laid out for creating your Forrest Gump pattern—including spending as much time as it takes to write out the best possible version of your company, on both a logical and an emotional basis; and, to be safe, I want you to create secondary and tertiary versions as well—ensuring that you can run additional loops without running out of intelligent things to say.

In terms of the specifics, you’re going to be saying things like: “We’re the number-one this . . . we’re the fastest-growing that . . . we’re the foremost experts in this . . . The chairman of the board, a man named so-and-so, is one of the most astute minds in the entire XYZ industry . . . He’s accomplished X . . . he’s accomplished Y . . . and he’s built this company around one thing above all: [whatever that is].” And then you’re going to complete this pattern by moving directly into a close, saying something along the lines of: “So, Bill, why don’t we do this . . .” or “So, all I’m asking for is this . . .” and then transitioning directly into your close, which will end with you asking for the order a second time.

In addition, if the nature of your product allows it, one thing you should definitely consider here is to try to step down to a slightly smaller purchase, as it will definitely increase your conversion rate. In essence, you’re allowing your prospect to “dip their toe in the water to test things out,” and then, next time, after they’ve seen what a great job you’ve done, you can work on a much bigger level.

Here are a few quick examples of language patterns that work very well with this type of step-down approach:

“If you give me 1 percent of your trust, I’ll earn the other 99 percent.”

“Frankly, on such a small sale like this, after I split my commission with the firm and the government, I can’t put puppy chow in my dog’s bowl.”

“I’m obviously not getting rich here, but, again, this will serve as a benchmark for future business.”

Now, to be clear, even if you’re selling a product that doesn’t allow for a step-down, that doesn’t change the fact that this is the point on the Straight Line where many of your prospects will start to buy—especially the ones who have low action thresholds—as cracking the first three numbers of their buying combination is usually enough to close the deal.

On average, approximately 20 percent of the prospects who hit you with an initial objection will close right here, as a result of one simple loop. The rest of them, however, are going to require a bit more persuading, in the form of running additional loops that address one of the following three areas:

1 Increasing their level of certainty for one or more of the Three Tens

2 Lowering their action threshold

3 Increasing their pain threshold

RUNNING YOUR SECOND AND THIRD LOOPS

Congratulations!

You have reached the point in the sale where you’re going to get to experience the distinct displeasure of objection hopping. For example, those prospects who had originally wanted to think about it will suddenly need to speak to their wives or their accountants, or they’ll ask you to send them some information or they’ll tell you that it’s a bad time of year.

Now, for the vast majority of salespeople, getting hit with even one objection is enough to send the sale plunging into a death spiral. However, when they get hit with a second objection—which, like the first one, is nothing more than a smoke screen for uncertainty—that’s when things start to get comical.

You see, when they get hit with the first objection, a typical salesperson will respond with a canned rebuttal—one specifically designed to overcome that objection—and then they’ll ask for the order again. Of course, the problem with that is, unbeknownst to the salesperson, they just gave an answer that was designed to overcome a real objection, not a smoke screen for uncertainty about one of the Three Tens. In consequence, the salesperson’s rebuttal won’t exert even the slightest bit of influence over the prospect.

So, what does the prospect do?

Do they come clean with their respective salesperson and say, “Listen, pal, you might as well know that these objections I’m hitting you with aren’t actually real; they’re just smoke screens for uncertainty. I just thought that it was more respectful to say, ‘Let me think about it,’ than to say, ‘I don’t trust you,’ which is what’s really holding me back. It’s nothing personal, by the way; it’s only that you and I just met, so it’s natural for me to feel this way.

“Besides, the truth is that I’m not 100 percent sure about your product, either. I mean, it sounds pretty good, but I definitely need to find out more before I buy.”

Obviously, it would be extremely productive if your prospect came clean like that. Then you could start focusing on what actually matters, which is raising their level of certainty for the Three Tens and, if necessary, lowering their action threshold and then adding on pain. Unfortunately, though, that’s not how things typically play out.

Instead of coming clean, the prospect takes the path of least resistance and switches to another objection, one that their salesperson hasn’t had the chance to refute yet.

So, what does the salesperson do?

Like a dog chasing his own tail, the salesperson goes back to the list of canned rebuttals and chooses the one that’s been designed to combat this new objection, and then repeats the process again—trying to sound as smooth and natural as possible—and then immediately transitions into asking for the order again.

Then the salesperson shuts up and waits for the prospect to answer—confident in the fact that, since they hit the nail right on the head with their latest rebuttal, the prospect should definitely say yes this time. But, of course, that’s not what ends up happening.

Since the prospect has just gotten an answer to another objection that they couldn’t care less about, they simply switch to yet another new objection, to which the salesperson then spits out yet another canned response, and on and on the death spiral goes.

You think I’m exaggerating?

Well, as unlikely as it seems, I’m not.

This is what happens, all over the world, when salespeople get hit with that first objection—unless, of course, they were lucky enough to have been taught the strategy of looping, in which case they sidestep the first objection using the strategy of deflection.

However, in the case of the second objection, you’re going to have no choice but to address it head-on, as it would seem too evasive to keep deflecting objection after objection. The important thing to remember is that, whatever rebuttal you use to respond to your prospect’s objection, all the answer does is give you the right to speak more.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say that Bill didn’t buy after your first loop. Instead, when you asked for the order the second time, he said, “It sounds really good. Why don’t you give me your phone number, and I’ll call you back in a few days and let you know.”

Your actual rebuttal to that objection would sound something like this:

“I hear what you’re saying, Bill, but let me just say that I’ve been doing this for quite some time now, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that when people say they’re going to think about it, or call you back, what ends up happening is that they end up putting the idea in the back of their mind and deciding against it, not because they don’t like the idea—in fact, in your case I know that you actually do—but the simple fact is that we’re both very busy people, and you’ll go back to your busy life and end up missing out on this; and I don’t want to see that happen to you.

“In fact, let me say this: one of the true beauties of the situation is that, right now, Microsoft is on the very cusp of . . .” And, just like that, you’ve seamlessly transitioned back into the sale, where you’ll pick up right where you left off with building your airtight logical and airtight emotional cases at the end of your first loop.

In other words, when your prospect hits you with the second objection, you’re not going to just answer it and ask for the order again; instead, you’re going to loop back into the sale once more and move your prospect to an even higher level of certainty for each of the Three Tens, using the secondary language patterns that you created for this exact purpose.

Now, from here, rather than going straight to the close (like you did with your first loop), you’re first going to run an extremely powerful language pattern that will allow you to crack the fourth number in your prospect’s buying combination—namely, their action threshold.

THE ACTION THRESHOLD

By way of definition, the action threshold is the collective level of certainty that a person needs to be at before they feel comfortable enough to buy. For example, I, personally, have a very low action threshold, which means that I’m extremely easy to sell to.

Why?

Because you don’t have to get me to a 10, 10, 10 on the certainty scale to get me to buy. If you get me to a 7, 8, 7, that will probably be enough, especially if the purchase is going to resolve a pain that I’m feeling from an unfulfilled need.

Here’s a perfect example:

A few years back, I was walking through an airport in Perth, Western Australia, and as I approached the gate I heard a loud thwack in the background, which sounded like someone had just hit the living hell out of a golf ball.

Sure enough, when I turned towards the sound, I saw a slender young Asian kid with a golf club in his hand, in a perfect trophy pose—as if he’d just finished hitting a three-hundred-yard drive straight down the middle. The kid was standing inside some type of promotional stand that had been roped off, and as I continued towards my gate, I watched him tee up another golf ball on an indoor mat and take a smooth, elegant swing. From where I was standing, it looked like he’d hit the ball straight through a window, although on closer inspection I saw that the ball was stuck to the face of the club.

As it turned out, some company had come up with a “revolutionary” golf training system in which they put Velcro on the face of a golf club and on a regulation-sized golf ball that was made of some sort of sponge-like material, so when you took a swing at the ball, it would stick to the face of the club; and, based on where it stuck, you could tell whether you were going to hit a hook or a slice.

In any event, I watched the kid take a few more swings, at which point I moseyed on over to take a closer look, and to get an explanation as to how the thing actually worked.

“It’s really simple,” he said confidently. “Watch, I’ll show you!” And with that, he put the ball on a white plastic tee, and then he took his stance and proceeded to take a beautiful cut at the golf ball, one that would have easily sent it three hundred yards down the center of the fairway. However, when he showed me the head of the club, sure enough, there was the ball, stuck to the face of the club, as if it had been glued there.

“Look,” he said proudly. “I hit this right on the inside of the ball—right here—so that would’ve been a nice, solid draw, about two hundred eighty yards in the short grass!” Then he went on to explain how you could also see if you were hitting the ball too close to the heel or toe, which would help you get rid of the most dreaded of all swing results: the shanks.

So, I took a few moments to consider everything—realizing the obvious fact that, what with golf being the hardest sport in the world to master, there was a very slim chance that this little contraption could improve my golf swing even one iota. Nonetheless, the sucker in me came shining through, and I asked, “How much does it cost?”

“It’s only forty-nine dollars,” he replied. “And it comes right in the box. You can carry it on the plane with you.”

“Fine, I’ll take it,” I muttered, and, just like that, I bought it right on the spot, knowing full well that there was virtually no chance it was going to work.

But why?

Why would I make a decision that seemed to fly directly in the face of my own self-interest? The answer lies with the inner mechanics of how human beings, as a species, go about making their buying decisions.

Specifically, they run parallel movies through their minds.

In other words, the instant before you make a buying decision, your brain runs not one but two separate movies: it runs a positive one, which represents the upside potential, in the form of all the wonderful benefits that you’ll get to experience in the future if the product turns out to be as awesome as the salesman has cracked it up to be; and it runs a negative one, which represents the downside risk, in the form of the all painful things that you’ll experience in the future if it turns out that the salesman misled you, and the product is a total piece of crap. In other words, what’s your best-case scenario, and what’s your worst-case scenario?

Your brain runs both of these movies through your mind simultaneously, but it happens so fast that you don’t even realize it. For example, with the golf training system, let’s say the salesman had turned out to be a total scam artist, and his product was useless.

What’s the worst thing that could have happened to me if I bought it?

Is a purchase of $49 going to put me in the poorhouse?

No, of course not!

Is it going to make my golf swing even worse?

I highly doubt it.

Am I going to feel like an idiot for getting taken to the cleaners?

No, again, because I spent only $49 on the thing. So what’s the big deal?

And that’s about as negative as I’ll go, in terms of future pacing my downside risk.

However, when it comes to considering the upside potential . . . well . . . in that case, I’ll really let my imagination go.

I’ll be saying to myself, “Well, if this thing can help me get rid of those dastardly shanks I’ve been hitting and help me hit a beautiful drive like that skinny little Asian kid, then I can only imagine how great I’m going to feel when I’m sitting in the clubhouse with my buddies after a long round of golf, and we’re having a few beers while I’m talking about my new and improved golf swing!”

Now, that’s a perfect example of how someone like myself, with a very low action threshold, will play out a very empowering, positive movie, without any prompting from an outside force. And while I’ll always make it a point to play out the negative movie too, I won’t spend a lot of time doing it. Instead, I’ll blunt that movie, both in length and intensity, turning it into a shorter and more watered-down version than it probably should be.

On the flip side of the question, let’s look at someone who’s literally the polar opposite of me—meaning, someone with an ultra-high action threshold, like my father, Max, who is literally one of the toughest buyers on the planet.

In point of fact, my father will not buy anything unless he is absolutely certain about all three Tens, and that means damn sure of them. There are no miracle golf cures getting sold to him in an airport. In fact, the moment he realized that the kid swinging the golf club was actually selling something, he would be like: “Who the hell does that kid think he is, selling some miracle golf cure? I mean, can’t a man walk through an airport anymore without someone trying to sell him something? Besides, what makes this kid an authority on golf? What a set of balls on this kid! What—a—set—of—balls!”

In consequence, if you get someone like my father to an 8, 8, 8 on the certainty scale, then there’s simply no possible way they’ll buy. Similarly, they won’t buy at an 8, 10, 8 or an 8, 9, 8. The only way they’ll buy is when you get them to a 10, 10, 10 and they’re damn sure of it.

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.

You’re at that magic moment now, when, in perfect sequence, you’ve summed up the very best benefits, you’ve reduced the energy expenditure, you’ve lowered the action threshold, and you’ve asked for the order in just the right way, using your tri-tonal closing pattern.

So, be quiet and let the client answer!

If you do, you’ll find that about 75 percent of all the prospects who ultimately buy from you will do so right here. In essence, by taking these high–action-threshold buyers and, for a few fleeting minutes, lowering their action thresholds, you can then step through that window and close what are about to become your most loyal customers.

Indeed, if there’s one thing about high–action-threshold prospects that makes them more than worth the extra effort it takes to close them, it’s that they make excellent long-term clients. They’re typically great tippers, they don’t mind paying top dollar, and they almost never leave you for another salesperson, even if they get offered a better deal. They’re basically so happy to have finally found a salesperson who was able to break through their limited beliefs and earn their trust that they’ll stay put under almost any circumstance.

My father was a perfect example of this.

Growing up, I watched with fascination as he dealt with the same few salespeople to fill virtually all his needs, and he never questioned them about anything—about price, delivery times, competing products, the options or features they recommended, how much of a particular item he should buy, and what warranties he should take out. The bottom line is that he viewed each one of them as an expert in their respective fields, and he trusted their judgment on every level.

Ironically, it’s these ultra-loyal, highly lucrative, high– action-threshold prospects, like my father, who end up slipping through the fingers of virtually all salespeople other than natural-born closers and those who have studied the Straight Line System.

To them, these otherwise “ultra-tough prospects” are nothing more than routine closes that had to be taken a little bit farther down the Straight Line as a result of their beliefs, which required the salesperson to crack the fourth number of their buying code—lowering their action threshold.

RUNNING ADDITIONAL LOOPS

So here we are, two loops down and . . . how many to go?

It’s a good question, isn’t it?

I mean, how many loops should you actually run?

Three loops? Four loops? Five loops? Ten loops? Twenty loops?

Before I fully answer that, let me start by saying that for those prospects who haven’t bought yet, you’re definitely going to run at least one more loop. After all, you still have one number left to address in their buying combination—namely, their pain threshold.

In essence, people who are feeling significant pain tend to act quickly; conversely, people who are in denial of their pain tend to act slowly. In consequence, there’s actually an inverse relationship between the amount of pain a prospect is feeling and their action threshold.

In other words, in the same way that we can lower a prospect’s action threshold by running a language pattern, there are also natural, everyday occurrences that can impact it as well; and when it comes to lowering the action threshold, the primary occurrence is how much pain they’re currently feeling.

Here’s a perfect example of how this plays out in real life:

When I was nine years old, my dad was driving us down to Washington, DC, in the family car as part of a two-week summer vacation that was going to take us all the way down to Miami Beach, Florida. We were somewhere around Delaware, about two hours from home, when the water pump blew out, and, all at once, the car started rattling and the lights on the dashboard were flashing and there was smoke coming from under the hood, and my father was muttering curses under his breath as he pulled over to the side of the road.

Now, what you need to understand here is that my father was extremely particular when it came to who could touch any of his possessions—and that includes basic, everyday items like his shirts, his ties, his wristwatch, his camera, and the very hair on his own head, which has been cut by the same barber for the last thirty years. But of all his possessions, the one he was most particular about, by far, was his car. Nobody—and I mean nobody—was allowed under the hood of my father’s car except for one very special man: Jimmy at the local Sunoco station. Anyone else was strictly off-limits.

However, on that particular day, with his family stuck on the side of the road, 120 miles from home, with the sun going down and the temperature dropping, what do you think my father did? The answer is he went to the nearest gas station he could find and said to the owner: “I don’t care what it costs. I need you to fix my car right now!”

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.

Option two is to use this as an opportunity to get back into rapport with your prospect so you can end the encounter on a high note, while also setting up the possibility for a callback. In this case, you would say something like: “Jim, please don’t misconstrue my enthusiasm for pressure; it’s just that I know that this truly is a perfect fit for you.” Then you’d change your tonality to one of utter sincerity, and add: “So, why don’t we do this: let me email you the information you’re looking for”—or whatever the prospect’s last objection was—“and then give you a few days to look through everything and also to discuss it with your wife”—or whatever their secondary objection was; if there was none, then you’d just omit this—“and then we can speak again next week, after you’ve had a chance to really get your arms wrapped around everything. Sound good?” And, from there, you can decide whether you want to set it up so that you’re supposed to call the prospect back or the prospect is supposed to call you back.

Which path you choose depends on too many factors for me to give you a definitive answer without knowing the specifics of your industry; but, if there were only one factor I could consider above all, it would be what percentage of your callbacks ultimately end up buying. If the percentage is very low, then for the sake of time management, I would leave the ball in their court and wait for a callback—thereby assuring that you only talk to prospects who are truly interested.

On the flip side, if the percentage of callbacks that ultimately turn into clients is very high, then I would keep the ball in your court and instigate the callback yourself.

Just one final point with this—and that’s to never forget the ethical side of the equation, which is that you do not want to use pain to disempower people; you want to use it to empower people by helping them make good buying decisions, so they can have the things that they truly need.

I. Go to www.jordanbelfort.com/tonality to listen to the tonality.

II. Go to www.jordanbelfort.com/tonality to listen to the tonality.

III. Go to www.jordanbelfort.com/rebuttal to read about proven rebuttals.