as you probably suspect i'm zig ziglar now before we invite the live audience to participate in this presentation i'd like to share some thoughts that are critical to your success in closing the sale number one selling is a transference of feeling if i can make you feel about my product like i feel about my product if there's any way on earth you are going to buy my product now willie dorsey the great spiritual singer puts it this way brother if you're going to be convincing then you've got to be convinced in other words you transfer that feeling to others that your product goods or services are good now there's a myth that's an absolute fallacy and that is that a good salesperson can sell anybody anything that's a con artist a good salesperson a professional one who wants to build a career instead of just making a sale clearly understands that you've got to have a conviction that what you're selling is in the best interest of that person who's buying that way you render a service that's what selling really is all about second point i'd like to make is simply this prospects don't change their mind now i know what many of you are thinking but in reality they make a new decision based on the new information which you give them that's the reason the professional salesperson has a storehouse of additional information because when the prospect says no they're really saying no based on what they k-n-o-w now you let them know more and good closing involves education then they're going to be knowing more and consequently buying more number three the kind of person you are is critically important a harvard study recently revealed released reveals this that the people who gain the most usable information from a presentation such as this one take good notes that's number one and number two when it's over they get with an associate or their boss or their trainer their manager and they brainstorm so as you watch and listen ask yourself these questions how can i adapt and use this material zig sharing with me in my career so that i can sell more today and be able to sell more tomorrow to the same people now tell you what let's do let's go to that live audience totally convinced that our major need in america today is leadership in the home thank you thank you very much thank you all right okay thank you oh my goodness thank you very much oh okay sometimes when people stand up on me before i get started i'm afraid they're about to leave me so i'm glad to see you sit down i'm going to be asking questions as we go along the first three closes involve selling you on what you do now selling and so i call this one the persuasion clothes as i ask you these questions some of them are kind of simple but please do me a favor and respond to them how many of you sell a pretty good product can i see your hands please all right how many of you sell a extraordinarily good product can i see your hand how many of you ladies and gentlemen uh sell a product that serves or solves a problem can i see your hand how many of you believe that when you sell a product that solves a problem you deserve a profit how many of you believe that it sell two products to sell to solve two problems you deserve two products two of profits can i see your hand okay in other words you believe that when you render a service you deserve to be paid for it is that what you're saying and what you're saying is the more people i helped the more problems i saw the more profit i deserve isn't that really what you're saying there okay now i don't want to put words in your mouth because that's not sanitary but that really is what you're selling or seeing all right now how many of you been selling for as long as a year can i see your hand all right how many of you still got all of the money that you've earned in the last 12 months can i see your hands okay let me ask you a question how many of you got clients or customers whom you sold a year ago two years ago five years ago or ten years ago or that are still using and enjoying the benefits of what you sold them all those years ago can i see your hands now the next question is the critical one how many of you believe that the customer was the biggest winner in the transaction all right then if that is the case is the sales process something you do to somebody or is it something you do for somebody now when you understand that you're in position to begin to close the sale now let me tell you what i just did i just did something that is extremely important in selling you know a lot of times we convince people that our product goods or services are the best but we don't persuade them to take action how do you persuade well let's go back in history and look at a couple of gentlemen named aristotle and galileo aristotle was a brilliant man but he came up with a very foolish concept he believed that if you drop two weights of different sizes but made out of the same material that they would fall at different rates of speed that's what they taught at the university of pizza for years and years and years and then a young whippersnapper named galileo came along and he said that's crazy the students and professors said why you're off your rocker why aristotle said and he said well let's go to the top of the leaning tower of pisa and let's take a look and see he took two different sized objects of the same material he dropped them and they obviously felt at exactly the same rate of speed he had convinced them beyond any doubt that what he was saying was absolutely right but he did not persuade them to take action now what am i getting at how do you persuade people you don't persuade people by telling them you persuade them by asking them you see had i started by saying that you as salespeople really render a service you would say yeah but i do okay too hey you do all right and that's fine that's part of the equation that's the reason i went through that little routine about how many of you sell a pretty good product that is so important you see that sales process is something you do for someone it is not something you do to someone so i'd like to tie that in selling you on you to another attitude close because you're the most important part of this equation for a couple of years i fought in the ring one of the things and incidentally had a pretty good record as a matter of fact the worst i ever finished was second now the reason i quit was because of my hands the referee kept stepping on them well anyhow in athletics what you do is you study the opponent's weakness and exploit it that's true in football basketball boxing tennis whatever it is you study their weakness and exploit exploited in selling you study their weakness that is their need and you strengthen it by selling them your goods are products or services there is your difference right there now what kind of person sells the most what is involved philosophically in this we've built our entire business on the concept that you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want you solve their problems my friends you're going to do all right now please understand that's a philosophy and not a tactic where does character and integrity enter the picture the forum corporation out of boston massachusetts did an exhaustive study on 341 sales people 173 of them were super successful 161 uh of them 173 were super successful 168 of them were moderately successful and they determined what made the difference now all factors were equal in the two groups as far as experience and education and product and territory and all those things but there were two major differences and reasons for their success the first one was trust you see the reality is without integrity people won't listen without trust they won't follow meaning they will not buy now the question is who do they trust now this is so simple it's going to be frightening they trust the good guys and the good girls they trust those people of character and integrity the second major difference they discovered was this the super successful salespeople the career sales people clearly understand that the sale is not complete until the order is signed the merchandise is delivered and paid for and the customer is happy with it in order for those things to happen you have to have a team of support people and most professional salespeople do not have a team so when they call their office they're just as courteous to the switchboard operator as they are the chairman of the board they're just as nice to the file clerk and shipping clerk and collection lady or person as they are to any of the executives in the company and they become a team and everybody understands then that they're involved in the sales process now let's look at what i call the three question close to kind of begin to tie some of these together let's assume in this close that you've demonstrated your product and let's assume that you have demonstrated that it will save money and so the three questions simply uh can you see where using this product or service would save you money question number two are you interested in saving money and question number three if you when do you think you ought to start saving the money now exactly the same question will go with time and work and health can you see where this would be good for your health are you interested in taking care of your health if you were ever going to start taking care of your health when do you think would be the best time to start that's the immediacy having them into action right now let me give you a specific example of how that works don jarrell from garden grove california represents a very fine accredited vocational college a man and his three daughters came in to consider enrolling in the college the enrollment fee was roughly sixteen thousand dollars now that's a pretty uh nice little piece of change but don had already determined that the man could well afford it so he knew that price was not the problem but he knew in order to persuade him to take action he had to ask him questions that would lead him to the decision table not run him or force him at the decision table so we ask him very simply do you invest in the stock market the man said well as a matter of fact i do then he said do you consider the funds needed to put your daughters through school an investment or an expenditure now i want you to notice he's tying the head and the heart together now let me emphasize the point people do make emotional decisions but if you've got some logic behind it your chances of getting the sale are dramatically higher well the man obviously said well i considered an investment then very quietly don gerald said and how much are your daughters worth as an investment now what i'm encouraging you to do is to think in terms of adapting these and other questions to fit your product goods or services now we look at the alternate of choice close here and you will see that one will come up a number of times under several different circumstances but let me encourage you always think in terms as i make a presentation or give you a close think in terms of how can i use this adapt it adjust it to fit my particular goods products or services how can i use this to fit my situation that's the reason that brainstorming and thinking it through is going to be so enormously important first time i heard of alternate of choice was old elmer wheeler many many years ago you know he was a man who said sell the sizzle and not the steak well the walgreen drug company back during the depression hired him to help boost their sales now in those days the drugstore uh part of it the soda fountain was an enormously effective uh tool for bringing people in and it was a great profit center well in those days before we had cholesterol nutrient assistance in our country today the land the land of milk and honey all we talk about is calories and cholesterol but anyhow uh wheeler they used to sell eggs and put them in the uh in the milkshakes you know the malted milks and all well in those days you could buy a dozen eggs for 15 cents when they put an egg in the shake they charge them a nickel for it so instead of asking them if they wanted an egg in it wheeler taught them to pick up two eggs and simply when they ordered a milkshake or malted milk say did you want one egg or two there was a dramatic increase and explosion of business as a direct result of it alternative choice can be used in many ways did you want to handle this by check or do you prefer to pay cash do you want to use a credit card or do you want to put it on our budget system now as you look at these i'm going to go through a series of questions some are alternate of choice closes some of them are just question closes and some of the assumptive clothes but notice some of these if this were the only feature this machine had it would be well worth owning wouldn't it closing when we installed this equipment would you like me to demonstrate the major features again assuming would you like for me to mark this one sold while we check on the most agreeable terms to finance it for you now that injects just a slight amount of fear what you're implying is it might be gone and i'll say this several times but the fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain don't take anything away from me that's a reason in stores where they measure out food we always teach them put too small an amount on there first so you can add to it nobody wants to see things taken away from them that's selling all right another close do you need to consult with anyone else before you place the order is the purchase order issued from this department would you like to have your own bank finance this or would you like for us to work out the financial arrangements since the item is in short supply would you be willing to wait for three weeks for delivery would you want to make a large deposit so the month of deposits are smaller or would you prefer a minimum deposit and slightly larger monthly deposits would you prefer this in green or does the red appeal to you most again i challenge you use your imagination think of your products and services and in your quiet thinking time think it through and as you brainstorm come up with other questions shall we ship it by motor freight or air express do you want the slot registered in your name or your wife's name do you prefer the lot on the golf course or does the one on the lake appeal to you most if you saw that it was a you to your advantage to own this product and the terms work out are satisfactory would you have any objection to going ahead today can you see the financial advantage to reducing the use of those powerful overhead lights which provide unneeded light in some areas in favor of using point of impact lighting during certain times of the day do you believe it's wise to invest in solidly constructing equipment which will give you long trouble free operation for the lifetime of the product now those are questions that can be asked but let me say it again people do not change their mind they do make new decisions i ask that redhead of mine now my wife is a decided redhead meaning one day she just decided that she is going to be a redhead by her uh preference when i talk about her always call her the redhead when i talk to her it's sugar baby and her name is jean i asked her to marry me and she said no ask her the second time no third time no fourth time no fifth time no six times she said yes but she never changed her mind what she did was make a new decision now psychologically you as sales people need to understand that when a person says no and you just sit on them and say oh you know you like it go ahead you're just irritating them because they've already decided no and they're not going to change their mind now if you'll give them new information which enables them to make a new decision you see a wise person changes his mind and i think everyone knows that but they change it for a reason and we've got to give them those reasons now let me give you a specific example as i ask you this and let me get you to respond how many of you would give me 100 for an item you absolutely knew was worth only twenty dollars that's foolish isn't it all right now understand the sale is made in the mind of the prospect when they're saying no in most cases what they're saying is based on what you've told me thus far i'm not going to give you my big stack of money for the little value you offer me in the product now you give me more value and i'll separate myself from my money and so every time you use a new clothes or new information you build value and value and value and value and only when the value gets above the price do you have a legitimate prospect that's where you start closing the sale now let's look at some closes that deal with specifically how to overcome the price objection by using your voice inflection now as a matter of curiosity how many of you ever get a price objection can i say your hands please all right now let me say this when you use the right words and you're selling the right product and use the right inflection in your voice then you've got an infinitely better chance of making the sales let me say that those voice inflections can completely change the meaning and intent of words for example how many of you realized that in the bible it clearly says that man was born cursing did you know that if you don't believe it look it up it's job 3 1 and it clearly says and job cursed the day he was born now the only thing is that little comma is not in there when you took the comma and put it in that completely changed the meaning for example let's take something like i did not say he stole her money now those are eight words and we can make them say eight different things with voice inflection this is why good professional salespeople need a cassette recorder so they can record their presentation and listen to their voice and listen to that voice in flexion for example when i say i did not say he stole her money that's just a statement of fact but alter it slightly i did not say he stole her money completely different meaning or i did not that's a feminine denial uh say he stole her money or i did not say he stole her money completely different or i did not say he stole her money if i was a rascal over there that did it or i did not say he stole her money uh you know he's going to put it back i mean he's just borrowing it or i did not say he stole her money it was hers that the told or i did not say he stole her money it was a diamond ring the rascal got now you see we took a words in one sentence made them say eight entirely different things and when you become a serious student of selling and learn what those voice inflections are and how you can handle them it makes a dramatic difference charles osgood says compared to the spoken word charles osgood says compared to the spoken word a picture is a pitiful thing indeed words move people they move them emotionally now if you can put the word and the picture together now we're in business now different prospects will object differently for example one prospect might stomp his foot in essence and say that price is ridiculous how many have you ever had somebody you know are really are responding in a manner like that another one might say well it seems to me the price is a little high you might have a good old boy down at home type feller and he might say you folks kind of proud of that stuff yourself ain't you now they're all talking price but you handle them in a totally different way the one who says that price is ridiculous you don't argue you don't say no it's not either you repeat what they said but you do it this way you lower your voice you look them right in the eye and simply say the price is ridiculous now that sounded so simple but you'll have to hear that a number of times to get that inflection right what i did at the very end my voice was rising and what that does is it physically moves the objection back to the prospect side of the table you are now selling on offense instead of defense because the prospect now has to defend their statement instead of you justifying the price now because everything is selling ladies let me go ahead and tell you this that that works infinitely better even at home for example let's say that you beat your husband home and you've had really a tough day and as he walks in you greet him warmly of course and give him a big old smooch you know and then you back up about three steps you look at him in a big old smile and say honey did you want to take me to aleman's or far fallows for dinner you might say i don't want to take anywhere to dinner you know to argue with him you just simply repeat what he said you don't want to take me to dinner hon it almost ain't fair it really is not now let's say let's say that it's grass-cutting time and so you say to your 14 year old okay son it's time to cut the grass i don't want to cut the grass you don't argue with him you repeat what he said you lower your voice you're looking right now and say you don't want to cut the grass in i can absolutely guarantee whether you want to take their toys to the back room or cut the television set off or get the repair person to come out and repair the air conditioning on a brutally hot friday night i can tell you it works dramatically better now let's look at it another way let's say that uh one prospect might say well uh you know the price is a little bit high then we got a lot of different ways for example i call this the like it close i simply say then well let me ask you do you like it and most things yeah well i like it well mr prospect don't you believe that it's difficult to pay too much for something you really like well they might uh say well you got a point but yeah i think you can pay too much for something you really like but you've just crossed a little barrier you now have got them thinking along these lines and let me point this out sometimes when they object to the price that's not the objection at all so early on you need to smoke it out is that the objection and you do that simply by saying well let me ask you if there were a way i could show you that the price not only is fair but actually is more than fair would you go ahead and take advantage of the offer that we're making to you this evening now this morning or whatever what you're really doing is trying to smoke out the advantage you're trying to smoke out whether or not the price really is the uh you know the objection they're rising now let's say they say well yeah the price is via the the problem that i'm having with it then what you do is if there were a way i could show you how you can legitimately justify this price and take advantage of our offer would you be willing to go ahead and start enjoying the benefits today now if they say no then what you need to do is to smoke out the real objection because price really is not it but if the answer is yes then you simply ask the question well do you like the product and most of the time you're going to get an answer well then the next question don't you agree that it's difficult to pay too much for something you really like now a lot of times that forces them to start that thought process and you've just taken one step towards closing that's that sale uh then if they say yes then you say well it's okay to do something nice for yourself now if the answer is no then you move into what we call the fear of loss close and you do that with simply making this statement when you agree that it's better to invest a little more than you had planned instead of less than you should now here's the reason i make that ask you that question if you invest a little more than you had planned you're talking peanuts if you invest less than you should and the service or products you buy won't do the job you need it done and need it to do then you literally have lost everything now if the prospect says the price is still too high then you move to what we call the how much too much clothes for example for 15 years i was in direct sales i sold heavy-duty stainless steel cookware and it carried a premium price for a very justifiable reason and a lot of times the prospect would say well uh yeah your product is too much and i say well give me a figure how much too much they'd say well 200 dollars too much and i would always write the 200 down and then let me give you this little bit of data i had had a policeman take his 45 and shoot my little eight inch frying pan from a distance of 12 feet and had a documented statement notarized saying that he had done that and you could just barely see the dent in that little pan and so i had shown that to the prospects in the process of the demonstration and i said let me ask you you say two hundred dollars too much how long do you think this set of cookware is going to last you and verbally say well i think you'll last forever then i would say it certainly would last you at least 20 years wouldn't it and invariably say yeah i don't think you'd have any trouble with that well if you invest 200 too much over a 10 a 20-year stretch what that amounts to is about 10 a year and if you break that into uh pennies it means really that for just three cents a day you can go ahead and have the finest equipment that you can get anywhere at any price now the prospects still uh objects or still says well it's too high then i would ask him this i would say now let me ask you this question do you ever eat out and invariably they would say oh yeah we frequently go out to dinner then i would simply say to them well let me ask you do you tip the waitress invariably they say oh wait or they say oh yeah we always tip well this was a number of years ago and so i would use a lower price i would say well now how much do you generally tip and they would say well at least a dollar and i would say well now let me tell you what you're giving a dollar for that is to have the food brought from the kitchen and put on the table you brought the civil ware and the china out they served you water and coffee but they served now you give her a dollar for doing that or him a dollar for doing that your wife went to the store she bought the food she brought it home she uh carefully prepared it she cooked the meal she brought it to the table and served the meal then she's got to take it up and wash the dishes now remember this was many years ago before a lot of the ladies were working as they're doing today and their husbands didn't give them much help at all in that kitchen most of them still don't give them very much help but then i would simply say if you would tip that served person a dollar for bringing the food from the kitchen to the table don't you think your wife deserves at least three cents for doing all of those other things i got to tell you we got some pretty exciting results as a result of using that particular close now if the prospect says well the price is still too high then i would go to this one well now let me ask you are you concerned about the cost or is it the price that you're concerned about and a lot of times they would say well what's the difference now i would always use and incidentally the reason i move to the board and what i encourage you to do anytime you see me use this board to illustrate a point or use graphics to illustrate a point that says to you that you need to be letting your prospect see you writing something when you're showing figures and the reason is we've been conditioned to believe what we see and doubt what we hear now if they see it and hear it see it as logic here it is emotion you put the two together and you got a better chance of making the sale so the prospect says well what do you mean is it cost or price we're concerned about then i simply say and here's the example i use because it happened in my life i encourage you to get one out of your industry that specifically fits you i say well now when my son was six years old we went down to the swim bicycle place to get him a bicycle they told us it was 64.95 well years ago that was an enormous price to pay for a bicycle just to teach a six-year-old how to ride he gonna tear it up anyhow so i went down to a discount store and there i priced a bicycle for 34.95 now this price is obviously considerably less than that and again i'm showing them they're seeing it in here now it was a nice little bicycle about 60 days later we went back to that little bicycle store because we wanted to uh get the handlebars replaced and they said well you know it's in warranty i'm not going to cuss anything well 30 days later we had to go back and get more new handlebars no longer a warranty and so now the price is four dollars and fifty cents higher and at this point we have got let me say 14 nine uh uh yeah 39 uh dollars and 45 cents invested in that bicycle well about three months later the entire sprocket apparatus the brakes and all of that came completely cozier we went back to the little bicycle store and this time it came to roughly fifteen dollars and now we've got fifty four dollars and uh forty five cents invested in that bicycle well about a month later the barons in the front wheel went gazeb we went back down a little bicycle store and they said it'd be about five bucks i'd forgotten i threw in the towel at that point and i said no way then we went and bought the swim bicycle for 64.95 my six-year-old son rode that bicycle he raised the handlebars took the fenders off and made a dirt bike after about five years out of it he rode that bicycle regularly for the next five years and periodically he wrote it for 10 years the only other expense we had literally were two tires for that bicycle now let's look at what i've just said the price of this one was considerably more than the cheaper bicycle because of this bicycle right here for six months it cost us 54 45 or nine dollars per month to him for him to ride that bicycle in 10 years this bicycle cost 64.95 or the cost was 6.50 per year now mr prospect let me ask you again is it price or is it cost you're concerned with now the reason i stress that so strongly is simply this a lot of people can beat us on price but nobody can beat us on cost and since price is a one-time thing and cost is a lifetime thing don't you really want the best possible lowest cost that really is effective now let's say you don't have time to do all of those things as far as dealing with price let's say you're at a counter somewhere and you've only got a few seconds to make the sale and the prospect simply says well the price is a little high and you just have that one moment you look your prospect right in the eye and you simply say to them you know mr prospect many years ago our company made a very basic decision we decided that it would be easier to explain price one time than it would be to apologize for quality forever and i'll bet you're glad we made that decision aren't you i'm telling you folks i've sold a lot of merchandise with that particular clothes it really does work let me emphasize a point people do make emotional decisions for example we griped and complained when they started making us wear our seat belts and automobiles i've never heard anybody gripe about wearing a seat belt in an airplane and yet the truth is if you have a wreck in a car with your seatbelt on the odds are three to one that is going to prevent more serious injury perhaps even save your life now on an airplane 30 000 feet up you got your seatbelt fastened and that sucker comes down i'm here to tell you that seat belt's not going to do you any good at all we do make emotional decisions now again if we can put emotional and logic together we're going to be in business ev jackson from tucson arizona is in the life insurance business and he was telling me he used this very specific clothes to make the biggest sale of his career and incidentally he said he was kind of dragging bottom at that particular point he called on this couple and made the presentation on the biggest contract he had ever offered and the objection they brought up was simply the price is too high and then ab simply looked at them and lowered his voice and said many many years ago our company made a very basic decision they decided it would be easier to explain price one time than it would be to apologize for poor service for the rest of your life i'm glad they made that decision mr prospect and i'll bet you are too ab said it worked beautifully i'd like you to please understand this every close won't work for everybody selling everything your experience your judgment and your common sense will be the determining factors now you might be asking yourself well ziggler why do we need to know so many closes anyhow well let me give you a basic reason for that dr herb true did some research at notre dame university he discovered that only four percent of all of the salespeople in america will ask for the order five or more times now i want to emphasize something they do not necessarily ask of those five times in the same interview there are many presentations where in fact you do not ask for the utter simply because you're gaining information so that you can make a legitimate proposal to them when you're talking thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands even millions of dollars you don't walk in make a presentation very many times and walk out with a multi-million dollar contract though it does happen especially if you expect it to happen but what dr true discovered was simply this those who asked for the order over a period of time sometimes in one sitting more often in two or three sittings at least five times those four percent closed over sixty percent of all of the sales meaning simply that they made over 60 percent of all of the income you got to ask for the order when i first got started in selling one of the first things i was told was you close early you close often and you close late how many of you have ever been told that especially when you first got started in selling yeah well the question comes up how early is early let me emphasize this as strongly as i can emphasize it you never ask for the order until you have given them some legitimate logical reason for giving you a yes answer if you've not given them value before you ask for the order you come across as a high pressure type salesperson i want to get this over and move on to the next prospect now that's one of the reasons you give that value first because once the prospect has said no a little barrier goes up you can get over it but it is more difficult than if the barrier had never been raised so give value before you ask for the odor and that leads us into what i call is that fair enough close you do build that value before you ask for the decision but let me simply say this it's okay it's even wise to let the prospect know in advance maybe that you're going to ask for the order for example years ago things were slightly different than what they are today when i was in the life insurance business we used to do the fact-finding interview and then we would go back with a proposal and i would always have it in a beautiful folder and when i went back then i would uh take uh the proposal like so and i would say i have prepared a proposal for you then i would pull out a plain sheet of paper like so and this is where i'm saying it's okay it's even wise particularly if you can go ahead and if you've done a lot of research before you get there and let them know in advance you're going to ask for the order so i'd pull out this sheet of paper and i said now mr miss prospect as you can see i got a plain sheet of paper there's obviously nothing there to explain there's nothing there that you would not uh understand because there's nothing there here's a promise i'm going to make you i'm going to promise you that when i finish this proposal to you but it's going to be just as clear just as plain as that blank sheet of paper is at this moment and if it is that clear and if it is that plain then i'm going to ask you if you see it is in your best interest to go ahead i'm going to ask you this evening or this morning or whatever to make that decision is that fair enough i'd like to inject a little extra right here i would like to inject a close i call uh simply the you've got an answer for everything close now here's what i mean sometimes you've answered several objections and the uh you know you've impressed the prospect with just how much you know about what you're talking about and so many times uh uh half in admiration and half in exasperation well the prospect will look at you and say well doesn't make a difference what i say you've got an answer for everything how many of you have ever had somebody uh say that to you all right you're that close to making the sale but you're that close to missing it if you might admit that you were number one in the region last month you just blew it if a prospect says that regardless of whether it's an admiration or exasperation you quietly look them in the eye and you say to them well you know i really appreciate that comment i'm going to take it as a compliment but the truth is there are many things i do not have the answer for that's one of the reasons that i'm so excited about selling a product or service which is the answer to your problem and that's what you really want isn't it you convert it you've now made it a very positive close number of years ago i was traveling through st louis missouri i was changing planes had a little extra time looked down at my shoes realized i needed a shoe shine walked into the shine stand young man escorted me to my seat he made the chains for his previous customer i had a chance to look at the prices of the shoe shine 75 cents this was about 12 years ago 75 cents was the regular shine a dollar was the white shine and two dollars was the spit shine well i figured i'd get the regular shine for 75 cents tip the guy a quarter and i'd be on my way he came to me and incidentally i called this the shame close he uh he came to me and then he said which one i said regular now you're talking about voice inflection the young man backed up and said regular well i knew right then uh i was in uh for an unusual shoe shine but i wasn't about to let that guy get the best of me so i said yeah you guys do such a marvelous job here i know it's going to be fabulous and i'll be on my way well the guy didn't say your thing didn't even grunt he just started putting the saddle soap on my shoes and he started cleaning them and as he did he said man these are really nice shoes what kind are they and i said well they're ballast he said boy he said they're nice he said i bet they're comfortable aren't they i said they ought to be he said cost a lot of money i said do they ever cost a lot of money and he uh went on cleaning the shoes you know then he reached out and he felt the pant leg and he said man he said that is really a nice piece of cloth and i said well it ought to be too he said what kind is and i said well it's a hickey framework he said man those suckers cost a lot of money i said yeah i know they do but this one's got some special cloth and it makes it even more expensive but i've already been wearing a suit about five years and you still can't see any problem with it well he said man he said that's nice and then he started the shining process and he was just shining away and he was a popping you know and uh when they were popping that's not shiny and i shine shoes in the navy i know when you're shining shoes that's a sales talk he's trying to attract the crowd from outside so he was just popping away and all of a sudden he backed away and he looked at me right now and he said you know this seemed like a shame man spent over a hundred dollars on a pair of shoes spent several hundred dollars to get a nice suit of clothes and all he's trying to do is look nice then he won't spend another dollar to get the best shine in the whole world i said spit on a man spit on them well now folks you know when you get a 75 sunshine a two-bit tip that's fine but when you got a two dollar shine nobody with class gives a two-bit tip so i gave him a three dollars you know and as i walked out uh you know i was really picking them up and putting them down i was feeling pretty good you know i looked over the clock and i said it clicked straight up and down ten o'clock now the reason i mentioned that is because when i sat down i noticed it was exactly three minutes until 10. i was in his chair three minutes i gave him three dollars now you don't have to be a phi beta kappa from mit to figure that one out that is 60 dollars an hour did you realize that's what we were paying our psychiatrist back then of course this guy does some good but uh uh you know you might say but zig he doesn't sign a 20 pair of shoes an hour all day long okay but do you figure uh let's cut that half in two instead of 60 makes 30. cut that half in two he doesn't make 30. he makes 15. and you take 15 an hour and cut that half into and i know he knows more you know what that adds up to it adds up to right at 20 000 a year shining shoes and i got something to tell you friends if that dude ain't making at least 30 ain't a dog in georgia i mean uh he is shining a lot of shoes but now let me point out two very sound things about him his name is johnny i asked him his last name i knew johnny because it had his name on his name tag there he said i'm not going to tell you if i tell you both names you'll forget them both if you'll always remember johnny though he was a professional he's the only shoeologist i've ever seen now the reason i know he was a shoeologist he had it right there on his name tank johnny shoeologist well let me point out a couple of things he was a superb workman he delivered everything he sold that's important number two he was a professional sales person and those two things merit it but what i'm really saying is if a gentleman in a job like that can make that kind of money look at what we in the profession who have products and goods and services that extend us infinitely greater opportunities look what we can do but the story doesn't end there a few months later i was back in the st louis airport i walked in this time there's no other shine guy around no other customer i'm the only one now by then they've changed their prices and structure just a little bit it simply says best shine two dollars he i sat down he said what kind well i didn't want to go through that routine again so i said just give me your best well as he was shining i was bragging on him you know i discovered a long time ago that behavior which is recognized and rewarded is repeated and so i wanted the best possible shine so we had quite a little conversation as a matter of fact he got carried away and he just kept shining kept shining kept shining finally i said johnny i got to go he said okay and he finished it up as i stepped down he said you know he said i noticed you had a hang up you hung up an overnight bag when you sat down i said you know you said you're spending the night in st louis i said yeah he said i was just wondering if you had another pair of shoes in your bag and i said well as a matter of fact i do he said you know it'd really be a shame to have the best looking shine in st louis tonight and then just look like one of the gang tomorrow he said won't take me but a moment i call that the extra clothes a captioning not that available to be met then we are actually reaching don't misunderstand i'm not suggesting you try to sell everybody everything you've got every time you make that call on them but they're buying if you're selling products you know they're buying from someone else think of the time and effort you can save them if you can become more of a service person to them selling them more of the things they're buying already anyhow it is a service you really can't have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want then i'd like to share with you what i call the marriage close i was in the insurance business one of the things used to frustrate me i spent a lot of time preparing a proposal and making the presentation get down to the clothes and the prospect would say well mr ziegler i hate to tell you this but my wife's second cousin's got a neighbor whose boyfriend's son his dad has a brother who is selling life insurance and if we buy anything we'll have to buy from them well i knew it was just a stall they weren't going to buy any life insurance from anybody and so what i did then was simply this i remembered a book i'd read by frank bitcher many years ago called how i raise myself from failure to success in selling this is the reason sales people need to be students they need to be learning all the time it is a profession and it's a profession that changes and frank becher had a statement in his book i would tell you this if you were my own brother he also had another statement in there simply this is what i would do if i were you now what frank boettcher had done he would make appointments before he ever made the call for that prospect he would say to the prospect i can do something for you right now that no other insurance person in philadelphia can do and they would say what's that well i've made an appointment already for you to be examined tomorrow afternoon probably at three o'clock by the only physician in philadelphia who can give you agreement and approval right now that this amount of insurance is going to be placed in force i stole a page from him and i would say to the prospect i can do something for you right now that no other insurance person in the world can do obviously they'd say what's that i would say i can marry you the lord say you what now i would reach over and i'd pick up uh a certificate of marriage which i had already prepared and the certificate of marriage would simply say on this 28th day of august 1993 2 or whenever isaac zigler agreed to marry john and mary smith by this marriage i agree to be available in time of need i agree to stay abreast of all the tax developments and social security changes as they relate to the needs of john and mary smith i agree to assume responsibility for giving them the best advice and my professional knowledge will permit and i would simply say the only thing that you agree to is this to give zig ziglar the privilege of earning the right to serve you but you're okay here we're in business it was hilarious what generally happened oh boy invariably would slap his leg and he'd say honey what about that this dude wants to marriage he wants to marry both of them mr ziegler now this is legal you're not going they're not going to get us forbidden to me are they i i'd go right along with it i'd say no i've already cleared it with insurance commissioner the governor of the state i've even talked about it with my brother-in-law he says it's okay and invariably with a big life and a huge flourish he would sign the uh marriage certificate i had beautifully typed his name in is on corinthian script it was beautiful parchment paper interestingly enough i never once had a marriage certificate signed but i did not get the application signed now how can you take that and use it in your life well hog feeling associates is a firm up in chicago in the chicago area and uh west fenster that heartfelin associates is the gentleman who made this particular sale he called on these people and he was not getting any uh any results at all they sell private labels of various products to company and here were the terms of agreement when you buy a private label program from hotfield and associates and the nice pack company you also buy me i am literally going to be married to the shopko account i will see that you receive the following the finest products available for shopko's valued customers the best possible service the fairest price and it went right on down the list and we got to the bottom of it he would simply say and this is all you need to do to put this in force first year they sold over half a million dollars worth of merchandise they had been calling on them for years i've had any number of clients to say this works see the marriage indicates that you're not going to hit and run that you're going to be a permanent person with them it ties it together the marriage close has worked and works well there's no such thing as a little sale but it is safe to say that we will miss 100 of all of the sales we don't ask for very few prospects are going to demand that we take their order that does happen occasionally but it is very rarely chris hegarty says that 63 of all sales interviews end without a direct ask for the order at this point i would like to share with you what i believe is a very significant uh close it's called the pressure belief close at this point what i want to simply say to you is that we've had some ideas some procedures and some stimulation but when i talk about a pressure belief close it happened in australia i was with my friend john nevin he was with world book encyclopedia he told of me of what happened to him when his career first got started as a world book salesperson and he went on to become the managing director called a little german couple they really were more like grandparents they'd been in australia very brief time their english was was not real good a little lady was 55 i'm sorry 51 years old she had given birth to their one and only child when she was nearly 45 years old very little short lady had language difficulty he called on them at roughly nine o'clock in the evening it was way past midnight when he left with the otter as he started to leave she put her hand up on his shoulder she had walked him through the front yard because they had a vicious dog got him outside the gate she reached up and put her hand on his shoulder and i can't emulate that guttural german accent but in essence it went like this thank you thank you young man for stay with us till we know what these books do for our boy thank you thank you thank you pressure belief is simply this it's when you believe so fervently and so completely that that prospect is going to benefit the most by buying from you that you are willing to kind of put your ego on the line you're willing to take a slight risk even on occasion of offending someone by asking for the order again now let me stress something you got to do it pleasantly you got to do it politely you got to do it professionally you must by all means do it with that person's interest at heart but if you really believe they're the winner you will become so professional in what you do you will learn so many closes that you will be able basically to go forward with a conviction that you are rendering them a service now only experience judgment and common sense will dictate to you what is the proper time and what is the proper amount you'll never get experience by listening to a trainer or watching one of the videos which i do you will get ideas you will get techniques you will get procedures now if you really want to build a sales career and substantially improve your sales it's time to go to work i encourage you not only to read but to study secrets of closing the sale and my other book ziggler on selling now the reason i say that is this you can learn a lot of closes and procedures and techniques but unless you understand the philosophy and the psychology behind them you will only be partially as effective you will need to read the exact words many times there are literally over 140 closes and over 800 questions in these two books that will help you to lead people to those decision tables and then in order to get the voice inflections down we have made audio cassettes of each of these videos and while you're in your car you need to be listening to them over and over and over the smei international sales and marketing executives international says the average professional salesperson spends 510 hours a year in the automobile that means you literally can make it your sales university you can learn procedures and techniques you will really be able to make it a part of you so you can automatically and instinctively respond you also are going to need to work very much with your manager your associate or your trainer if you're one of these people who happens only to be working independently by yourself i encourage you to get in front of the video look it over take those notes and then start compiling your own ideas to go along with the specifics that we are presenting here the reason i went to doing all of these things when you see something you'll remember it when you hear it you forget it but if you see it and hear it and do it you'll understand it that means you will close more sales so if you do that i can close as i always close by saying you do these things and i'll see you and yes i really do mean you at the top thank you and god bless you you