Jeffrey Gitomer

What would Ben Franklin think of the Ben Franklin close?

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The Benjamin Franklin Close (also known as “The Balance Sheet Close”) is one of the classic old time sales tactics used to “close a sale.” Never heard of it? Shame on you – not enough sales training.

The scenario is this: You’ve made your presentation, but the prospect is on the fence, and won’t make up his or her mind. You’ve tried everything, but can’t get them to budge.

Then you say, “You know Benjamin Franklin was one of our wisest citizens, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Johnson?” (Get prospect’s agreement) “Whenever he was faced with a decision — and he had some pretty big ones back then – he would take a plain piece of paper, draw a line down the middle and put a plus (+) on one half, and a minus (-) on the other.”

“In his genius he discovered that by listing all the positive elements on the plus side of the paper, and the negative things on the minus side, the decision would become obvious – pretty sound concept, agreed?” (Get prospect’s agreement)

“Let me show you how it works. Since you’re having a tough time deciding, let’s list the benefits – some of the reasons you may want to purchase. Then we’ll list the negatives. Fair enough?” (Get prospect’s agreement)

Now you list every good thing about your product or service. Get the prospect to say most of them. What the prospect says will be the main points of interest to him. Take your time to develop a complete list. THEN YOU SAY – OK, let’s list the negatives, and hand the pen to the prospect, and push the list towards him. Don’t say a word. Usually the prospect can only think of responses having to do with price or affordability.

In theory this sounds like a good way to close a sale.

The big problem with the Benjamin Franklin Close – it’s old world selling that not only doesn’t work, it annoys the prospective buyer. Try that close on someone who has ever taken a sales course, and it’s an insult.

The reality of the sale is – the prospect has already made up his mind – he’s just not telling you.

So, should you just forget it and never use the Ben Franklin Close. Heck no – just use the Ben Franklin principle in a different way. Do what Ben would have done – figure out a new way and a better way, and use it.

Here’s a powerful new way to re-use the classic Ben Franklin Close close:

Use it on yourself – before you make the sales call.

  • Use it as a preparation tool.
  • Use it as a strategizing device.
  • Use it to get ready to make a big sale.

Get a plain piece of paper (or your laptop), and draw a line down the middle of the page.

on the plus side…

  • List the prospect’s main needs.
  • List the questions you want to ask.
  • List the benefits and main points you want to be sure to cover.
  • List one or two ideas you’re bringing to discuss.
  • List one or two personal things in common to discuss.
  • List the decision makers.
  • List why you believe they will buy.

on the minus side…

  • List the reasons why the prospect may not buy – and your responses.
  • List the obstacles you may have to overcome.

Now you’re ready to make the sale, and Ben helped you.

If you use the Ben Franklin Close on yourself, before you go in to make the sale, then you can ask the buyer intelligent closing questions. For example, questions that might lead with the phrases – What are the major obstacles…? Or, What would prevent you from…? Or, Is there any reason not to proceed with…?

That’s a Ben Franklin close that Ben would be proud of – the one you prepare for yourself. You close yourself before you make the sale. Wow!

Try this new version of an old classic. Ben would be proud of you. So would your boss.

I think it was Franklin who said, “A close in time saves nine – objections,” but history has distorted it for the people who knit. Pity.

Free GitBit – If you would like a few famous Ben Franklin quotes that will inspire you, motivate you and help you see the obvious in a new way go to www.gitomer.com and enter BEN FRANKLIN SELLS in the GitBit box.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at salesman@gitomer.com.

Bill Bartlett

Are You a Monday Morning Quarterback?

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When I was growing up, I spent many joyful Sundays watching football with my father. At the end of every down, we relished critiquing the coach’s play calling – if it had failed – by boldly claiming we knew the plays that would have saved the day. We reenacted this ritual every week and even carried “our” game’s analysis through Monday morning breakfast. By the time we finished our discussion, we were self-acknowledged geniuses who, unquestionably, deserved a coaching spot on any National Football League roster. Unfortunately, since that’s not how play calling works, we found ourselves relegated to the role of “sage” after the fact.[wcm_restrict]

Many leaders run their business in the same manner and assert specific changes should have taken place as soon as they receive unacceptable bottom-line results from their finance department. They are typically lagging indicators, a consequence of decisions and subsequent actions that had already taken place. It’s a lot like closing the barn door after the horse escaped or, in my own example, Monday morning quarterbacking.

The solution that does serve as the primary predictor of consistent success and ends the cycle of “failure” may surprise you. Instead of cringing when dissecting month-end financials, I suggest employees in every position be held accountable for performing behaviors that are proven to positively affect the bottom-line. Once the top 10 behaviors for each position have been identified and communicated to every employee, the manager is responsible for reviewing them on a weekly basis to assure compliance.

Let’s use the sales department as an example, as it has the greatest opportunity to affect any company’s profitability. The following is a list of their top 10 behaviors:

  1. Lead generation (prospecting)
  2. Building Relationships
  3. Qualifying Opportunity
  4. Making Presentations
  5. Servicing Customers
  6. Account Management
  7. Territory Development
  8. Building a Behavior Cookbook
  9. Continuous Education
  10. Executing a Formal Sales Process

The execution of these behaviors can be measured on a performance scale of effectiveness from 10, high, to 1, low. If these behaviors are performed at the top of the scale, say 7 to 10, the salesperson has a predictably high probability of delivering their volume commitment. If the behaviors evaluated fall below a 7 and the salesperson is still predicting success, the sales manager can begin working with them to improve the results before month-end figures prove otherwise. There is one immutable fact in business that I learned a long time ago, “Behavior doesn’t lie!”

After key behaviors have been identified, they must consistently be utilized and reviewed to be meaningful as success predictors. At this point, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) come into play as an indispensable tool to measure their effectiveness. To develop a KPI for lead generation, for example, the success of its execution is determined by measuring it against an acceptable result in the 7 or above range. Using the total number of first face-to-face meetings with new prospects on a weekly basis is an effective measurement. To use my own example, I require my sales team to schedule and conduct a minimum of 6-8 such meetings to achieve this rating. Since their weekly report includes their lead generation activities as well as other behaviors KPIs, I can easily score them and determine whether they predict success or “red flag” potential failure. I use the Monday morning meetings I conduct to either applaud acceptable ratings and/or discuss those falling below a 7.

The Success Equation for any company is: Hire the right people + Assign the top 10 behaviors impacting the bottom line + Develop Key Performance Indicators + Review weekly = success. If you’re consistently playing Monday Morning Quarterback like my Dad and I did for years, it’s time to get in front of the performance curve and zero in on behavior.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember]

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About the Author

Bill BartlettBill Bartlett is author of The Sales Coach’s Playbook: Breaking the Performance Code (Sandler Training / 2016). Bartlett is an experienced Sandler trainer who plays an important role in Sandler’s worldwide organization and is recognized as a business development expert specializing in executive sales training and sales productivity training. He currently heads a Sandler training center in the Chicago suburb of Naperville, IL.

For more information, please visit https://www.sandler.com/resources/sandler-books/coaching.

Greg Wallace

Five Benefits from Leading Out of Our Own Identity

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Great leaders pattern themselves after (drumroll, please) themselves. As stated by Jim Rohn, noted business philosopher, “all great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective.”

Yet a significant amount of the billions of dollars we spend each year on leadership training is not about working on ourselves but patterning our leadership on some other leader’s life, leadership model, or leadership principles.[wcm_restrict]

For instance, in a review of a popular leadership book, Amazon.com states “Few of us are natural-born leaders, according to [the author of the book]. Fortunately though, ‘the traits that are the raw material of leadership can be acquired,’ [the author] promises. ‘Link them up with desire and nothing can keep you from becoming a leader. This book will supply the leadership principles. You must supply the desire.’ ”

Rather than adopting someone else’s leadership principles, we can develop our own… and find success in the process.

As people and as leaders, we are shaped by our upbringing, our education, and our experiences; we learn from parents, teachers, and mentors; we attend seminars, training sessions, and the school of hard knocks.

What we take away from each of those encounters helps us to develop our own set of leadership principles. If we are intentional about developing those principles, i.e., working on ourselves, we can become even better leaders.

What follows are five benefits from exercising leadership from our own personal model of leadership:

We are more authentic: Trying to emulate someone else’s leadership model introduces a level of inauthenticity that can create a gap between who we are and who we say we are. Studies have shown that authentic leaders have better working relationships and are more successful as leaders since they more easily engage and inspire those they lead.

We are more trusted: People follow only leaders they trust, they trust only leaders they know. When we lead authentically from who we are not who we are emulating, others relate to us better and trust us more.

We are better crisis managers: There’s an old saying, we are like a tube of toothpaste, we don’t know what’s inside of us until we are squeezed. Under pressure, we tend to forget what we are supposed to know but we never “forget” who we are. The more intentional we are about developing our personal model of leadership the better we are able to leverage the lessons we derive from this model during a crisis.

We are more adaptable: Another old saying, no matter where you go, there you are. Many leadership models are applicable in some situations but not in others. They are based on someone else’s experiences. However, our own model, based on our own experience, is instructive regardless of the situation.

We are more effective: Why would we use any approach if it does not make us more effective? Collectively, we spend billions developing our leadership skills but a study by Karp and Helgo concludes that identity is more important to leadership than skills, characteristics, or traits.

For example, I used principles developed from my personal model of leadership to reduce costs, improve quality, and increase productivity during my first full year of leading an application processing organization.

On some levels, the notion of leading from our own identity seems simplistic (don’t we do that without thinking?) but a paper on projective identification suggests that organizational pressures can have more impact on our leadership than our personal identity unless we are intentional about maintaining our sense of self.

This intentionality is critical if we are to reap the benefits of leading from our own identity.

We would do well to remember Judy Garland’s admonition to be “be a first rate version of [ourselves] and not a second rate version of someone else”.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember]

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About the Author

Greg WallaceAuthor, change agent and leadership trainer, Greg Wallace is CEO of The Wallace Group which consults organizations and leaders to implement change and transformation which produce results that meet the leader’s definition of success. Learn more about developing a personal model of leadership in his second book, “Transformation: the Power of Leading from Identity”.