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unconscious
until then, had
suddenly become conscious. I could see each distinct chunk of my strategy, as if it
had the defined edges of a jigsaw piece, and each individual piece seemed to be
screaming out its purpose at me. But there was more—
much, much more.
When I shifted my focus to any particular piece, I suddenly had access to every
root experience and every memory that justified the piece’s purpose and location;
and by focusing a bit deeper, a torrent of words came gushing into my
consciousness, providing the perfect explanation for the piece and how it related to
the others.
For example, if I looked at the point on the line marked “sales presentation,”
then I immediately knew that there were three things that had to be addressed
before the prospect would say yes; and then, if I focused a bit harder, the word
“certainty” popped into my mind, followed, a millisecond later, by each of the
Three Tens, which seemed to be floating above the line and tethered to scenes going
back all the way to my childhood, of random sales situations I had been in on either
side, as salesperson or prospect, and a vivid memory of why I had said no or yes to
the salespeople, or the prospects had said no or yes to me.
All of those things, each compressed into a millisecond, had flashed through my
brain while I stood before the whiteboard, staring at the objections. From end to
end, the entire experience was maybe one or two seconds, but when I turned to face
the Strattonites I was an entirely different person.
As I scanned their faces, the strengths and weaknesses of each came popping into
my brain in a singular rush of thoughts, as did a perfect way to train each of them
to perfection. In short, I would teach them to sell exactly the way I did—by taking
immediate control of the sale, and then moving the prospect from the open to the
close along the shortest distance between any two points: a straight line.
With renewed confidence, I said, “Don’t you guys get it? Every sale is the same!”
All twelve Strattonites shot me confused looks.
I ignored them, with relish, and I unleashed my discovery.
“Watch,”
I said forcefully. “It’s a straight line!” And I turned back to the
whiteboard, and for the very first time, I drew that long, thin horizontal line across
the middle of it and placed a big, thick X on either end.
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“Now, this is your open”—I pointed to the X on the left end of the line
—“where the sale begins, and this is your close”—I pointed to the X on the right
end of the line—“where the prospect says, ‘Yeah, let’s do it,’ and he opens up the
account with you.
“The key here is that, from literally the 
first
word out of your mouth, everything
you say and everything you do is designed to keep your prospect 
on
the straight line,
and slowly nudge him forward, from the open to the close. You guys follow me so
far?”
The Strattonites nodded in unison. The room was so quiet you could have heard
a pin drop. The air felt 
electric.
“Good,” I replied quickly. “Now, as a salesperson, every once in a while, we get
one of those 
perfect
, lay-down sales, where the prospect seems to be almost 
pre-sold
before we even open up our mouths.” As I continued to speak, I began drawing tiny
arrows on the center of the line, starting just after the left X, and then moving down
the line, to just before the X on the right. “It’s one of those sales where everything
you say, and everything you do, and every case you make about why the prospect
should buy from you, he keeps on saying, 
yes, yes, yes,
without giving you even a
single objection, right up to the moment where you ask him for the order, and he
agrees to close. That’s what I mean by a perfect straight-line sale.
“Who’s ever had one of those perfect, lay-down sales, where the client seemed to
be almost pre-sold from the start? You all have, right?” I raised my right hand,
prompting them to do the same.
All twelve hands quickly shot up.
“Of course you have,” I said confidently. “The 
problem
is that those sales are far
and few between. Typically, what happens is that your prospect keeps trying to take
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you 
off
the straight line and take control of the conversation.” I drew a series of thin
arrows, pointing upward and downward (
↑↓
),