By Larry Prevost

Recently I got a call from a prospect who had heard about us from one of his co-workers. He was curious about what we had to offer, but he also was skeptical if it could solve his particular challenge.
 
I told him about what we had done with others, but to see if this was a good fit for him, I offered to meet. I walked with him through the sales process, reiterating what he had told me he was looking for.  We then identified what he was trying to accomplish and I outlined our solution and what he could expect from our programs.

Then I tried something that I had read in Chris Lyttle’s book, "The Accidental Salesman." He wrote of a wonderful "closing" technique, called the “Force Field” method, that reiterated earlier steps in the sales process and got the prospect involved.

I drew three horizontal lines on a piece of paper.  I explained this was a depiction of his career path and the bottom line represented his past, where he started his career.  The middle line was where he was today. To have gotten from the first line to the second, he had to have certain skills and do certain things.  I then drew 10 vertical lines from the bottom line to the middle line and asked him to identify 10 of those qualities right there on the paper.

After he wrote these 10 qualities and we had discussed what they meant to him, I told him that the top line represented his future with his company.  I asked him to vividly describe what his career would be like with his company two years from now. 

Next I drew 10 lines going from the middle line to the top line and asked him to identify the top 10 skills and abilities that he would need to get from where he was to where he wanted to be.

Armed with the knowledge from our previous discussion and what we typically do in our programs, I then took each of those abilities and showed him how our program would help him attain that ability.  I secured each one to our process, described what he could expect to see in the timeframe of the training and how it would help him eventually get to that future he desired.

I was just finishing up with Ability No. 4 when he asked, “When do we start?”

Next page: The close is not something that you do to your prospect.

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