The Most Daring/Dangerous Thing You Said In Order to Close a Deal

I had a young naive couple tell me they needed to pray on it.

I said "I understand. This morning I prayed and asked God 'Who should I see today to help them get this vacuum cleaner?'. And of the thousands of places he could have sent me...he sent me here. out of all the days He could have picked...He chose today. Don't you think God is trying to tell us something?"

They said "Yes" and bought.

Not my proudest moment. I manipulated a gullible couple for my own ends.
I think about it every once in a while. Never fondly.

I have come across a few situations like this regarding praying on it. I have actually had customers pray with me right at the sales table. They Bought!

Another rebuttal ive heard, and used after someone says "give us a few minutes to pray about it". I leave them be for a short period and, when I come back to ask if they are ready to buy they say NO. In reply, I said "well thats funny, because I prayed as well and my God said you should buy today"!!

You rather sh*t or get off the pot...

Thats probably the most outlandish statement I made, and it worked. Obviously, you need to be very careful who you say something like this to.

I use to be a sales wimp and would accept… low prices and accept the excuse … I want to go home and think about it… but now I use high pressure to force people to say yes or no and I charge enough to make it worth my time and effort. Here’s why…

Several years ago I had a women and her two teenage daughters come into my photo studio for antique style glamour portraits. All three of them looked absolutely stunning in their portraits. However, the mother hated the feather flower that my wife had clipped to her hair and she refused to buy. I had already printed the images and showed her the finished proofs. An hour after she left her husband called and asked me what I was going to do with the unsold prints. I told him I would be destroying them. He said…. That’s crazy; I’ll give $50 for them and that way we both make out.

He really pissed me off and I told him I was tripling my regular prices effective immediately and since his wife wasn’t willing to purchase them at my crazy low prices, I may as well start destroying them right now and I ripped the first one in half while holding it next to the telephone so he could hear it… he called me a jerk and hung up on me.

Now, this guy did me a favour because everyone else who came in for portraits that week purchased their portraits at three times what I normally charged… and since then I have double that price again.

Now last year, I was doing some on location portraits of my friend’s daughter on her prom day. There was about 30 people there including the before mention woman and her husband. I didn’t recognize her because she had gain about 40lbs and looked a hell of a lot older than when I had photographed her.

But she remembered me… her youngest son was prom date of friend’s daughter. After the couple headed off to the prom and I was packing up my equipment the women and her husband approached me all teary eyed… asking if I still had the images on my hard drive because one of their daughters had committed suicide the previous year and they now wished they had purchase them. Unfortunately I had replaced my computer twice since those images were taken and no longer had them.
I would have given them up at that time for no charge if I still had the images.

Now whenever someone comes in to look at their images and ask if they can think it over I tell them…. Yes and no… If I wanted to be a jerk I could say no… once you leave the studio I can rip these proofs up right now and break the CD with your digital negatives up into little pieces but time is money and since I have already invested my time into creating your portraits I’m not willing to hold onto them for the next 5 years while you think it over unless you want to give me a $275 filing and storage fee to hold the images for 5 years. Now before you say yes or no I have something to show you and a sad story for you to think about… Then I pull out several newspaper photos and articles of teenagers I photographed who have died in car accidents and proceed to tell them the above story.

Then I say… I’m not going to hold on to your images forever. If you don’t like them enough to decide right now wether you want to have these images when the children are grown and have moved away from home… then you can choose to leave or you can consider setting up an easy payment plan now or give me a $275 storage fee, or else you can break this CD up right now yourself while I rip each of these paper proof in half, OK? Then I shut up and wait for them to speak first. Works more often then not. If they want them but can’t afford to pay for them upfront that day… I’ll set them up on a automatic bank debit and let them choose between monthly, weekly or fortnightly debits and the amount can be as little as $1.00 per payment. Even then, there is an occasional person who will call me a jerk for telling them I’ll delete and destroy their images without a signed debit agreement or the storage fee but I don’t care… I’ll tell them… If you don’t like these images then any amount I ask for them is too much to pay… however, if you love them like you claim you do and your only concern is price… you and I both know that the money you save today will end up being spent on something that is going to wear out and end up in the junk yard within a few years time… but your family portraits can never be replaced and will grow more valuable to you with each passing year.

Cheers,
Steve

I wouldn't go that far, but I was always the one that saved deals. I was even hired by other vacuum cleaner distributors (locally) to save their deals.

It isn't ever pleasant. I would listen to them rant for an hour sometimes. Then the husband would come home, and I'd hear it all over gain. I would as for a glass of water, sit back and ask them what concerns they had.

Usually, it was that the salesman insulted them, didn't explain how to use the vacuum, smoked in their home (this happened a lot), they found the vacuum cheaper somewhere else, or someone told them that they liked their (competitive) vacuum more.

After I would listen enough for them to exhaust themselves, I would solve whatever problem they had, and reseal the deal.

Sometimes these "saves" were just after the 3 day cooling off period, and sometimes within that period. I could save about 50% within the 3 days, and 95% after the 3 days. I charged other dealers $500-$800 for a save. My own sales reps I worked for free.

The hard part for me was that many times, the salesperson made some incredibly untrue promise that nobody could ever honor. Or made claims about the product that were untrue. That took a little longer.

I only did this for a year or so (for other companies). It was just too draining.

The one thing I did that never changed, was that I never gave any indication that they could get out of the sale....if it was after the 3 days.

Within the 3 days, it was a matter of being the company spokesman that wanted to get to the bottom of their harsh treatment.

I remember one day saving 8 Kirby vacuum cleaner sales. These people bought a week or more earlier, never got the machine..and the finance company already paid the distributor. It was a mess. I saved all eight sales, but it was a brutal day. All eight were angry, didn't want the machines, and didn't have to let me deliver it. They were all absolutely right. The guy was a scumbag. I never worked for him again. He went to prison about a year later (for creating forged finance agreements and getting paid for non-existent sales.)

He wrote me a check for $2,400 (which amazingly was good), and as he was writing my check, his oldest son was stealing all my tapes out of my car. As I was walking out to my car, he was walking into the office. I saw the box of tapes, told him they were mine (some of them had my name on them). Of course, he denied it. And I wanted the check more than the tapes...so I let him have them.

What a lovely business. This was in 1979 or so.

I don't know how daring this is, but it certainly works;

"We just need to think about it". This is after several attempts to get the sale. To the prospect, this is the end of the sales process.

"Guys, I understand. You want a chance to talk about it. I would too.
And I've been doing this for a couple decades now. And I've talked to a few hundred couples, later, who told me what happened after I left. Here is what they all said; I walk out the door, and one of you looks at the other and says one of four things; 'I wish we got it, I wish we would have bought it, I'm glad we didn't buy it, or I'm glad we bought it'....and you know what? That's pretty much the end of that conversation...forever. I'm going outside to the car to make a quick call. I'll be back in about 5 minutes or so. When I come back, I'll answer any questions you have" And I walk out the door. I leave everything there. I don't ask "Is that OK?". I just leave.

Notice in the first sentence I change "think about it" to "talk about it"?
If you don't like the objection, you can actually change it. Did you know that?

Anyway, over a few decades, about 40% bought when I came back, and 60% didn't. The 40% that bought would never have bought, had I left. I never had anyone not let me back in. By the way, when you came back in, if one of them is gone? That's a very bad sign. "You tell him "No"! I'm going to hide".

I never do callbacks.

It's devastating.

Thank you Benbro, for triggering that memory.

Benbro; First, Thank you.

It really isn't confidence. I've just tested so many different ways to answering specific objections, that eventually the best way (so far) just sticks out.

I used to ask permission, but sometimes they said "Well, really, we just want a few days to look at our budget (or something similar)"...and it would leave me with nothing.

Sometimes, a little boldness pays, and sometimes it doesn't. with this close, it does. At least when I come back in...I know one way or the other if I have a sale.

The reason that I insist on getting a definitive answer before I leave, is not because I want to pressure them, or because I want to trick them into buying. It's because I know....that many of them actually believe they are going to think about it...and that they haven't already decided. They believe that they may buy later.

But that belief doesn't translate into sales. So I will force the issue, and 40% will become buyers and 60% won't.

It isn't confidence. You have to genuinely not care which way they go. It gives you enormous power.