i'm jordan belfort and this is sales school [Music] all right so if you're a business owner do not let quickbooks and spreadsheets slow you down anymore now it's time to upgrade to netsuite by oracle the world's number one cloud-based business system network gives you the visibility and control over your financials inventory and more schedule your free product tour right now at netsuite.com school when i talk about the back half of the straight line i don't really mean a half it's a just you know an expression i'm talking about as the back side so i always
divide the straight line to two distinct chunks the front half or front side and back half or back side in reality the back half is more like two-thirds because what it represents is everything that happens in the sale after you ask for the order for the first time in other words in the front side of the straight line system you have those all-important first four seconds where you take control of the sale you then use that control to start asking smart questions you gather intelligence and you do that in a way that also allows you
to simultaneously build rapport right so those three crucial things you're taking control using control to gather intelligence and then as you're gathering intelligence you're simultaneously building massive rapport and you get to this point where you now know everything you need to know about this prospect that's relevant to the sale things like their needs their values their pain points and also whether or not they it makes sense them to take advantage of opportunities notice if they are not right for what you're selling you want to eliminate them from the process right that you want to pitch
to people and try to close people who can't be helped by your product it's not ethical it's a waste of time and of course also as part of this financial qualification can they afford my product so we essentially have those two groups of buyers i spoke about in the past your buyers and heat and your buyers in power those are your potential yeses and those two groups continue their journey down the straight line by making your transition right which is you know based on everything i've said this is definitely a perfect fifth between based on
everything you've said it's a perfect fit for you here's why and that here's why opens up the body of your presentation now you're actually gonna begin telling them what your solution is and in that opening presentation you give right we're hitting that first 10 on the logical side very hard we're adding some emotion in as well and then in that presentation you always want to end that with some urgency whenever possible reasons to buy now and then you ask for the order calmly persuasively using your tritonal closing pattern and bam and also remember energy in
benefits out another important thing right you want to set that energy in benefits out frame correctly and you ask for the order for the first time well guess what that ends the front side of the straight line you went from the open to the point where you asked for the order for the first time so now what could happen here well in reality there's only three things that can happen the prospect can say yes in which case you have one of those amazing lay downs like those little pre-sold sales right where you just the prospect
was almost like ready to buy before they entered the encounter those are your automatic yeses we love those but they're few and far between right maybe three to five percent if you're lucky sometimes you have a bit more in certain industries and sometimes there's none at all but it's a low number the other possibility here number two is they could say no i'm not interested which is even rarer than a lay down why is that because if using the straight line correctly you've weeded out all the people who weren't interested in your product or who
weren't right for your product so only one that has made the journey past qualifying that's actually heard your presentation they answered all your qualifying questions they need your product they're right for your product they can afford your product right so they answer all those questions while you're gathering intelligence you built massive rapport and now you offer this perfect solution to their problem what's the chance of someone saying no not interested it's very slow it's very low it never happens very very very seldom those no not interested happen when you're cold-calling when you're first just trying
to get them even into intelligence gapping that's when you get all the no's so when you're using the straight line correctly you're not going to get many no's so you get maybe a few yeses five percent yeses maybe three percent of just knows those the ones that just slip through for whatever reason and then you're left with the third category which is maybe as in maybe i'll buy and maybe i won't and what maybe is it's a catch-all for all of the common objections we typically hear in the back half of the sale asked him
after we asked for the order for the first time let me think about it let me call you back bad time of year gotta speak to my partner my wife my brother-in-law the accountant the butcher the baker the candlestick maker it's your christmas time it's tax time it's to school time it's groundhog's day it's freaking leap year you get what i'm saying here you get all the objections now remember what those objections really are are smoke screens for uncertainty right so what happens is i think this is really important that you understand this concept because
once you understand this it'll turn you into literally a 10 times better sales person just for understanding it so what happens is you have this collaborative process right now in the front side of the sale right you won't ask them to buy anything yet you're asking them questions they're answering you're explaining why your solution is perfect for them it's all collaboration trying to solve a problem and then you get to that point where you ask for the order for the first time and suddenly they're forced to make a decision of whether or not it makes
sense to part with their hard-earned money and suddenly this collaboration has the tendency to devolve into a confrontation because here's what's going on they're not certain enough yet you've told them some things about the product you've made your initial case but most people they're probably not that certain yet they're not at a 10 10 10 for the 310s say no you haven't you haven't done enough of your job yet you only started scratching the surface you're framing things so imagine if someone would say to you after you asked for the order the first one say
oh sorry jordan i just think your product isn't that good and i don't trust you or your company you're like whoa like that's pretty bold those are fighting words right like people have to be really direct to say that we've been taught not to be that direct we've been taught to be nicer more citizen-like you know oh it sounds good let me think about it in other words when someone says it sounds good jordan let me think about it what they're saying is i'm not certain i'm not certain about what is it about the product
is it about you meaning they don't trust you they're not connected with you is it the company they're not certain of you don't know it's one two or all three of the three tents or perhaps they have a really high action threshold or maybe they're in total denial of their pain it's one of those reasons because here's the deal think this through again logically if they truly were absolutely positively certain that your product was the best fit for them the best deal out there and they knew that it was going to work they were 100
sure and they could afford they had the money and they're facing this problem right now would they buy yeah they would buy but they're not sure they're not certain they have doubt they might be at a six or seven on the certainty scale which is not high enough for most people to say yes but rather than them saying that to you outright what they do is say oh it sounds good jordan let me think about it let me call you back so when they say let me think about it what the unspoken words are let
me think about it so i can take it through more maybe do some more research and make myself more certain and then make my decision when someone says let me speak to my accountant or my lawyer let me get the advice of another expert who can make me more certain if someone says it's a you know i'm kind of i you know what they say um can you call me back yeah they can you call me backwards i want to talk to other people do some research make myself more certain it always comes back to
more certainty they're not certain enough because remember the thesis here is that we're only speaking to what qualified people who need our product who want our product who can afford our product the rest have been weeded out so when someone who needs my product and can afford my product and is in pain says let me think about it what's my response well if i come at them say well john what do you need to think about i mean you know i mean all the information is fresh in your mind right now you told me you
were in pain you told me you needed this wasn't john give me a shot what are they gonna say well what happens is now that becomes a confrontation here's what's happening you're now almost in an argument with the prospect you're saying listen i'm right you're wrong meaning i'm right you should be buying now you're wrong to be wanting to think about this that's incorrect thinking on your part you should want to buy now as soon as you do that that's a confrontation and confrontations have a distinct absence of what rapport you break rapport so the
worst thing you can do at this moment when someone hits you with the first objection i don't care which one it is you know you're like ah perfect a smoke screen for uncertainty just which type of uncertainty is it about me the product the company i don't know but ah smoke screen for uncertainty it's time for me now to roll up my sleeves and do my job as a salesperson i always say any monkey can learn to read through a script from start to finish and say it with feeling in the right tonality it takes
a more trained salesperson to take let me think about it let me call you back bad time of year take those common objections and turn those people into buyers [Music] you
