[Tony Robbins] Mastering Influence Day 7: Create Conviction & Test Close

[Music] Well, welcome back. Session number seven. Can you believe it? We're coming around the corner. The finish line is in sight. So, I hope you're as excited as I am about what's coming up here. Today is going to be a great day, a great session. And you know what? I don't even have to ask you this because I know you are so committed to getting the best out of this program. You've already done it, and you know it's my job to ask. So, I don't want to ask it, but I will. Did you do your homework? Did you do your assignments?

Well, of course you did, because if you didn't, you would have already shut me off and gone back and done them. So, listen, congratulations for shutting me off now if you didn't do it. And congratulations for having done the exercises already. And let's rock on. I'm so excited about today because we're going to be talking about creating conviction and test closing. The last step in phase two in enrollment.

Now, let me ask you a question. Do you remember a time when you were, let's say, for lack of a better term, courting someone, somebody, or trying to win the affection of somebody else? Did you ever use any test closes when you're going through that process? I know I did. You know, you ask questions to see how you're doing in the relationship. You might ask something like, "Have you enjoyed our times that we've been spending together?" And of course, he or she may say, "Well, yes." And that kind of gives you an indication that they may enjoy being with you and that you can move further. Well, most of us do that kind of thing, and it tells us how we're doing and if we need to spend more time in that area or any specific area. Well, it's the same in sales. That's what step seven is going to show you how to do, how to move the conviction level up and then test to see if the person is ready to buy.

Now, in this session, Tony is going to cover 10 steps for creating conviction and test closing. Now, listen, while this might seem like a lot to do, I want to let you know right up front that the first six steps you already learned in the audio on creating interest. You remember those? The six steps to a unit of interest starts by making a claim, you know, using the word "because," then a fact, the benefits, and so on. Tony is basically building on these steps and adding test closes to it to teach you how to do this. It's really cool. One more thing before we start, though, and that is be sure, as usual, to follow up on the assignments in the session as Tony gives them to you. They're absolutely invaluable and they'll help you get what you're learning in your body, in your nervous system, and congruently, so that it becomes a part of who you are and you'll do it naturally. You know how that works. So, without further ado, session number seven, here's Tony.

[Music] So, where are we now? We've gone through six steps of the selling process, and we really haven't even presented our product yet. Why? Because right now, we have 70% of the closing procedure done. 70% of the sale is already complete. Right now, what have we done? One, we're prepared. We know who we're dealing with before we walk in the door. We know what kinds of things they really need, what some of their psychic wounds may be. We know everything about our product, everything about our competition, and we have a plan that can really make sense. Two, we haven't just gotten prepared, but we've really turned ourselves on so we can deliver that material in a very powerful and effective way. Three, we haven't just sat there and got all excited and pumped up, but we've actually gone out and made contact as well. Four, we didn't just make contact and get their attention, but if we've done our job right, we've made a friend. We have somebody now that really feels connected with us at 100%, where they trust us, and where that first question in their mind, "Whose best interest does this salesperson have in mind?" has already been answered. And they know you're a professional, and you know that you really care about them and are not going to try and jam something down their throat that really doesn't benefit them. Fifthly, we've got their interest. We've used some big fat claims and we've backed it up with a couple of benefits and some evidence to get them interested and excited to hear what it is we have to say. And so we engaged them. Then we went to phase two, and that's where we are now. We're in the process now of enrolling them. And step six, the last one we covered, if you recall, now is we're in the process of finding out who this person really is. We've qualified them. We've been looking for their Urban and their Lurbon and Drab Urban emotional reasons for buying. Right now, what are the states or emotions they want most that we can show them that by buying our product they can get certain feelings they want, like all advertisers do? And also, if they don't buy a product, what emotions that they're going to probably end up with and they don't want to have? So they want to buy now. We also are talking about Lurb and logical reasons to buy now. We've been looking for all of this in studying this person. So we know who the person is. We're connected with them. We have their interest. And now our job is to make a presentation. So we now go to step seven, create conviction and test close. And this is critical. When you go to create a presentation, the only purpose of a presentation should be create conviction that we can meet somebody's needs. The reason we haven't made a presentation up until this point is until you know who you're dealing with, until they trust you, until you're able to really get their interest so that they'll really listen to you, there's no need to do a presentation. In fact, if you don't have their full interest and know who they are, you're going to make a presentation in the dark. So the whole purpose of step seven is to create conviction. And the conviction we want to create is we want to get this person to the point where they absolutely feel they're justified in buying. That's really what this is about, giving them enough reasons to justify being able to buy. That's what you want to do. And then we want to test close. And that means find out where are they? Are they getting hotter or colder? Is our presentation working or not working? We don't want to hope it's working, come back to the last step of the sales process, try and close the sale, and have them say, "Well, I don't have the money," or "Well, I don't have the time," or "I'm not sure it's valuable." We want to know that upfront. So, create conviction and test close.

Now, how do we create conviction? Well, we're going to do it three ways. Number one way to create conviction is most people use this to try and give people benefits. In fact, most sales, I think, to be more accurate, try and share with the customer lots of facts. The fact is, our product is the number one product of its kind in the United States. The fact is, we have the finest service in the world. The fact is. But see, people don't buy facts, people buy benefits. So the three ways that we are going to assist you in being a little bit better in creating more conviction in people is: Number one, we're going to work on our own personal congruency. Congruency means that when you say something, your voice, your body, and your mind all are basically saying the same thing. That what you're saying on the outside is matching what you're saying and feeling on the inside. Incongruent is when people say things like, "You know, I want to be a multi-millionaire and I want to sleep till noon." That's called incongruent. Right? Incongruent is when somebody says, "I totally love you," and the next thing you know, they're dating somebody else. That's called incongruent. The bottom line is, what we want to do is make sure everything matches. So when you communicate and you say, "This is how it is," your voice, your body, your mind, everything is giving one singular message. So how do you get to that place of congruency? Well, we've already talked about this. So I'm only reminding you, every single time you go to meet with a customer, before you get there, you must condition yourself to have the deepest level of conviction about your own product. You must absolutely feel in your gut that you are being a giver and not a taker. And I've said this several times, and you hear me say it several more times in these final three or four steps, but you must believe when you walk in there that what you have to offer is 10 times more valuable than what you're asking back. And when I say you must believe that, I do not mean logically. You must remember that people buy for emotional reasons and they justify with logic. You and I do it as well, but emotions are what drive us. And selling is the transference of emotion. And for somebody to buy, they've got to have conviction. They've got to feel certain that what they're doing is going to give them what they want. And you cannot give to someone that which you do not have. You cannot influence someone else unless you've been influenced. And again, I mean at an emotional level. And this is a challenge that most salespeople have, and they lose their power. When they're brand new, they go out there with all this enthusiasm, they believe 100%, they got all this conviction, and they go out and make all these sales. But then they have some problems in their personal life, or then they have some challenges because the product doesn't get delivered on time, or then they notice that the product isn't perfect, and they start losing their conviction. Or they just talk about it so much, they get bored. They run into this thing we call the law of familiarity. The law of familiarity says that if you do anything enough, if you're around anything enough, you begin to take it just a little bit for granted. And it happens in almost every area of our life. And the same thing happens with your conviction about your product. So every single day, before I get up to talk about something I believe in, what I work hard at is really getting myself to the place of absolutely feeling the value before I speak about it. Otherwise, you're not going to feel it. It'll just be words go in your head and go out again. So creating conviction starts with having that conviction with you before before you go see the customer. How do you do that? Couple ways. First way, I'd say it would be the process of, well, I'll tell you what I did when I went to work for a man years ago, a personal development speaker by the name of Jim Rohn. He talked about goals and attitude and time management, some real basic principles. And I really believed 100% what this man's message was. I thought it was incredibly valuable. So I went to work for him not to make money. I mean, I wanted to make money, but that wasn't my primary thing. I wanted to like change the world by getting people to be exposed to this man. Because of that, I created so much conviction of myself that every single human being that I sat down with who'd been exposed to his program, we used to put people in an evening seminar and then we'd sit down with them one-on-one for an hour in a coffee shop, convince them to meet with us and give a presentation on why they should buy about $1,200 worth of programs. And the challenge was, at the time, that number one, I hadn't been to some of these programs, and number two, I really wanted people to get this value. So what I would do, literally on the way to meeting this person, let's say I'm going to meet them and it's 30 minutes away. I was driving my old VW Baja Bug Volkswagen. And, uh, I was going to tell this person how they could become more successful in their life and have all of their dreams come true. I just started with this man, and yet I was still able to convince every human that I met, every single one, bar none, broke every record they ever dreamed of. In fact, I ran out of leads and I told other salespeople, I said, "Give me your leads, I'll give you all the money. I just want to get these people to go to this event." And I had so much con. And they were thrilled. They said, "Yeah, you've sold everyone. Sit down, take all my leads, you know." So I sat down and I would convince people. But on the way over there, I would just drive myself into a frenzy of conviction. I would think about all the benefits that people could get from their lives, anything I knew about this person. And I would do incantations, quite honestly, with such intensity that by the time I got to see this person, I was in a deep trance of conviction. I would say, "I now command my subconscious mind to direct me in helping this person to better their life by giving me the strength, the emotion, the persuasion, the humor, the brevity, whatever it takes to show this person and get this person to invest in this product." And I would say that over and over again for 30 minutes, screaming it at the top of my lungs while I'm driving my little VW Bug through the freeway to get there. By the time I walked in the door, it was like the guy had no chance. I mean, I was absolutely certain. And if he told me no, there was no possibility he could tell me no because I had more conviction than he did. I want you to remember this: when two people meet and they discuss anything, the person who is most congruent, the person who has the largest amount of conviction about what they're saying, will end up influencing the other person in the long term. I remember one time I was on a radio show and somebody called up and questioned my credentials when I was involved with the NLP community. And, you know, I knew what they were, and I told them what they were. And the next person called up and said, "Those aren't your credentials." And I talked to this person today, and they said, "Those are not your credentials." And he's the person who gives them out. And they went on and on and on and on. And I was certain that they were, you know, crazy. And I thought they might have a little secondary gain because I was in their part, their community, selling my seminars, and they weren't too happy about that. But, you know what happened? This person was so certain about this that at one point I said, "Great, let's call that person right now on the air, live, and let's find out if I'm credentialed or not." I thought, "That'll handle that." And the person said, "Let's." Because I talked to him today, "Let's call them right now." And my brain went, "Wait a second." And I knew reality, but for a moment, I started believing them. Going, "Well, gosh, you know, are those people upset with me and they've taken away my credentials and I don't know it?" I began to like, I began to have doubt because they were more convinced. They had so much intensity, so much conviction, that I began to actually doubt my own knowledge, my own beliefs. So I want you to know that your level of conviction is the single most powerful thing that you can transfer to that person. You have to make them feel certain, absolutely certain, that if they invest in your product, they're going to get what they want most and it'll be worth it. And if you can transfer that and give them enough reasons to justify buying, they will, as long as you give them conviction to buy for their reasons and not yours. Remember, people don't buy for your reasons, they buy for theirs. And the reason we've taken so much time up until now to really get to know this person, connect with them, have rapport with them, what are their, uh, buying patterns, the reason we've taken that time is we now know who this person is. So what do we do now? We do is give it to them. But we must give them the experience that they're going to get what they want out of our product and service. And we got to give them that with congruency and conviction. So that's number one way to create conviction and push somebody over the edge is to really get that conviction within yourself. And I'm here to tell you that you could throw everything else away but that one belief, and you would find a way to be able to close the sale. And people will feel it if you're sincere and if you relate it to their needs. Here's the second way that you can create conviction in a very powerful way, and that's a lot of fun. You remember what I said to you that selling is really the process of getting people to make decisions? And the way that people make decisions, of course, is most decisions are a weighing process. What's happened? We said before is we have this person, and they're trying to figure out what to do, and they've got this fulcrum. And on this fulcrum, they have this boulder over here we call Drab. If you recall, Drab means dominant reasons for avoiding buying. Another word for that might be fears. Because their fears are the things that pull people down. Their fear about, you know, "Will it really work? Will they really get what they want out of it? Will it be worth the time and effort and energy and the things they've given up to have it? The inconvenience? What will other people say?" These are all dominant reasons that people use to avoid buying. It's always fear, and it's always fear of what pain. Remember, we told you that everything people do, they do either to gain pleasure or to avoid pain. So how do we balance this thing out? How do we make sure that their dominant reasons to avoid buying don't become the dominant force that grounds them and causes them not to buy? How do we ground them in the process of actually buying and catapult out these reasons for not buying? And the answer is, what we need to do is get plenty of boulders with conviction. In other words, feelings on this side of the scale that there are plenty of reasons to buy. Now, we call them Urbans, and also Lurb. Funny word, but again, Urban means emotional reasons to buy now. Now, if a person's highest value in life, let's say, is freedom, what would you say their largest Urban would be that you'd want to try and relate your product to that? If they got your product, they'd have more what? Freedom. Clearly. If their number one value in life is security, then that's going to be the biggest set of Urbans you're going to give. You're going to show them how right now they'll get more security, more freedom, more whatever, by making this purchase. And if they don't, they're going to lose some or miss out on some. Remember, we want to use the carrot and the stick. We don't want to just create fear in people, and we want to be elegant. You must get them to feel convinced or certain that buying will mean a lot more pleasure and very little or no pain, and that not buying could mean a lot of pain and little or no pleasure. Does that make sense so far? So that's the process. So how do we do that? Well, we do with something we call units of conviction. Now, remember, we created what we called units of interest when we're talking about grabbing people's attention or grabbing their interest, rather. Well, this is very similar. We're just going to add a couple of distinctions to it, and it's a way to really make the process work. So in the process of creating conviction and test closing, here are the steps. Step one is people have got fears. They've got what we call a little Drab here, dominant reasons to avoid buying, some of the fear, some of the things they've heard, and so forth. And if that's heavy enough, you can see there's a little scale here that measures whether they're going to buy or not. That's heavy or not. This is going to go down, and they're going to get cool, cold, or freezing, where there's no way in heck that they're going to buy. On the other hand, though, if we can get enough conviction, enough emotion, enough reasons to buy now on this side, and what's going to happen is the lever is going to come up, and they're going to go from warm to hot to boiling, to where they're absolutely ready to buy. In fact, they'll take it from you if we don't give it to them. And we've all been fortunate enough to have people like that. It's because they were convinced. They had enough conviction that they were going to get so much more benefit than pain that they went for it. Now, remember, they buy for emotional reasons and logical, and we got to give them both. What is the dominant buying mode for most people? Emotions. I will tell you this, though, most people do not want to feel like they're buying for emotional or sentimental reasons because that's not being intelligent for a lot of people. Instead, they want to believe they're doing it for logical reasons. So that's why you have to give them enough units of conviction to help them justify the purchase as well. Now, we're going to show you how to do that. So what does a unit of conviction look like? Well, the unit of conviction is simply very similar to what we did when we created somebody's interest. We had that little bag, if you recall, and in that bag, we had what we called a big fat claim. What you do is you make a statement, a big fat claim, and in this claim, immediately you say to people that you're going to be able to give them something that they really want. And let's say, for example, you're selling a computer system. You make a big fat claim: "Our computer system can save your accounting department about 30% efficiency immediately." Now, that's a pretty big fat claim. What's it designed to do? It's designed to open the buyer's mind to a new possibility, designed to grab their attention and open their mind, get some of their interest. So that's the first step. Now, this whole process I'm going to show you is called a unit of conviction. What is it? It's a big fat claim. In other words, a fact or a feature. So you state a fact or a feature. Now, the way you would do this, for example, let me back up a second so I'm a little more clear. Here are the processes to have a unit of conviction. First, you make a claim. So we might say something like, "Our computer system can increase your efficiency in your accounting department by over 30% immediately." That's a pretty big claim to make. Then you use the word "because." Do you remember why we used the word "because"? Put somebody in a deep trance. People go on automatic pilot when we use the word "because." Now, "because," and we state a fact. So, "Our computer system can increase your accounting department's efficiency over 30% immediately because we've done that for many companies and because of our particular microchip that we use." Then you say, "which really means to you," "which means to you," and you state a benefit. And a benefit you might say is, "The benefit to you is it'll save you a lot of time and a lot of energy. There, you'll be able to get the information you need much more rapidly." Then you say, "and that really means to you," and you state another benefit. And what that really means to you is a lot more money that you can save, and an accounting department of people that are happy and are actually producing a result you want instead of caught up in the busy work. So what we've done so far is we've made a claim. It could be a big one or a little one, but we've stated a claim that grabs their attention. We've said "because," and we've backed it up with a fact. And then we've sold two benefits out of it. In other words, have you ever gone to a customer and talked to them about a feature of your product or a fact about your product that you thought was great, and they turned it right back around and looked at it as a limitation instead of a benefit? Has that ever happened to you? Like you say, "God, our program, we have microchip XYZ, and you know, that's the fastest chip there is." And the person comes back and says, "Yeah, and it's also brand new, and I don't know how to use it." And they give you all these things. You try to give them a feature that would be a reason to buy, you know, in the weighing scale, it's like another reason to buy, and they turn it around on you. How many have you had that experience? So what you want to do is you don't want to just state facts, features. A unit of conviction is this. I'll keep it real simple for you and keep it tight. Here's what I mean: You state a claim. You take something that is a feature of your product and you state it as a claim. You say, "Hey, this is what we can do for you." And you back it up. But then you back it up with two benefits. So you take a feature. Let's say your product is more expensive than anybody else's product. That's a feature. Now, some of you will try and avoid this feature. I would not. You know, it's going to come up. So what I would do is I would use that as a way for them to convince them, to make them convinced that this is the best product. So I might say something like, "Our product is the most expensive product out there, and it is also the best because we have spent, spared no expense in producing the finest materials." And I describe the "because," which means to you that you're going to get what you really pay for instead of having something break down all the time, which really means to you that you're going to make a lot more money on your investment, and you're going to get it back in a very short period of time. So do you hear, hear what we've done now? We've taken a feature of our product or a fact about it, fact that it's more expensive, we've made it into a claim of a benefit. We've stated a claim, we backed it up with a fact, and we've created two benefits to it. That's what we call a unit of conviction. Now, the thing that we add to it is we give them some evidence. In other words, we come back and we say, "Okay, our computer system will do this because of this, which means to you this, and it also means this. And the evidence of it is we've done it with this company, that company, and this company." Now, what you've done is you've got their interest. And now you add the permission question, which we've already covered before, and that is, "So right now, though, my purpose is just to get some answers, your answers to a few questions. Would you be willing to do that for me?" And the person says, "Sure, I'll be happy to answer a few questions." And then what you're going to begin to do is create conviction and say, "Well, in your opinion, do you feel like being able to save that much money and have your people be that much happier would be something worth looking into or making a commitment on?" And what you're beginning to do now is actually create a commitment. So, to be even more specific, let's look at what we're doing. Then, a unit of conviction has seven parts. Part one, a claim. Part two, a fact to back up the claim. Part three, a benefit. Part four, a secondary benefit that really affects them personally and hopefully emotionally. Part five, we give them some evidence that'll back up what we've said. Part six, we get permission. Permission to ask some questions. And part seven, we start asking questions that by answering them, what the customer is saying to us is, "Yes, this is something I really need. Yes, this is a reason why I should buy." So the purpose of units of conviction is to create for someone a feature of our product into enough benefit that they tell us or confirm for us that that is a reason to buy. Now, does that make sense? Now, you're seeing some additional things here, and these are additional places to go once we've got someone a place where they're saying there's real value. But I want you to be clear in the seven steps. Let me go one more time because I know we've covered a lot here in a short period of time and I've bounced all over the place. So let's get real clear. What's the purpose? You and I have lots of features about our products, lots of facts. If we sell features and facts, we will be ineffective as salespeople. What we must sell are benefits, but we must link the benefits so that a person feels like they're real, so they have conviction that these benefits really are true. The way we make them true: Step number one, make a claim. Take some feature of your product and make a claim. And you can even take features that you used to think were bad, like how much it cost. So take a statement, some feature, make a big claim about it. Back it up with a fact, linking with the word "because." That's number two. Three, immediately back that up with a benefit. So they know that feature equals they buy benefits, they don't buy facts or features. And that's why they don't have to make up in their head what it means. And what that really means to you. Step four, another benefit. Back it up with, and the evidence of that is this, and that. And then finally, you get permission. Say, "Listen, the purpose right now is I just like to get your answers to a few questions. Would that be okay?" And then lastly, "In your opinion." And then what you do is you come back and say, "In your opinion, is this benefit important? Do you feel like that would be something worthwhile for your company?" So once they say yes, what have they made? They've made a commitment. And what you've got right now when somebody says yes is you've just dumped another bag of reasons for buying. Now, how many of these could you generate? And how powerful could it be if you were carrying around with you, like Santa Claus, a huge sack full of units of conviction that you could drop down on anybody's decision-making lever? That's what I want you to have. I give you an example. I used to market for the same man, Jim Rohn. His seminars. And one of the ways I used to sell effectively and persuade people was that we have a brochure, and we were selling a tape program. It had six cassettes in it, and it had had a couple of workbooks. That was it. It was $295. Now, how do you walk in and sell six cassette tapes for $295 with a couple of workbooks? And when it's the same material the person just heard? Well, number one, you got to believe the value is there. So you have to have enough conviction within yourself to pull it off, which I did. I listened to the tapes, and I felt, "Yeah, there's only six cassette tapes, and if you measured those by cost, that doesn't mean anything." But value is what matters, not what cost is. And so I got real clear in my head of what those tapes could do for somebody, what they were doing for me. So with that conviction, I would then sit down and I would do all the things we've talked about. I would prepare. I would prepare in my mind to meet with the customer by thinking about how I could benefit them, thinking about how their life would change, how I could make a difference. I'd try and find something out about the customer on the phone in advance or from somebody else. I would prepare because I knew what other people in the industry wanted and what they were charging. I knew everything, so I was well prepared. Two, I would turn on, and I would turn on on the way to the event, as I've already told you, I would do these incantations till I was in a frenzy. Three, I would obviously make contact. I would go out there and be with that person, eye to eye. And my goal in making contacts was always to see a minimum of four people a day. That my goal was to help four people every day, see them eye to eye. My next thing was, once I made contact, instantly I wanted them to feel I cared, which was absolutely true. So I looked for what I really, really liked about this person. Fifthly, I'd grab their interest. And the way I would grab their interest is immediately after talking to them, I would talk to them about the kinds of results that were there. And I'd talk to them about about what they already were exposed to. "What did you think of the seminar? What did you like best?" And they would tell me what their interest already was. And my belief was, they won't meet with me unless they're interested on some level. Lastly, I would find out as much as I could about them. I'd ask them questions about their goals and their dreams and their life, and I'd pull out everything that I could. Finally, I get to this step, step seven. And what I would do here is I had this little brochure. And what did it have? And a picture of this product, and it showed there were six cassettes and the names of them, and it showed a couple of workbooks. Now, that doesn't seem like, does that seem like you, if you just saw that, that you would feel conviction that that was worth $300? I don't think so. So how did I do that? The way I did is I realized a piece of paper with a couple of little writing on it did not create emotional benefits strongly enough. And if all I said is, "This is a great program, isn't it?" and did that, you know, I'm not going to be able to convince them. So what I did is I took each and every item on that particular brochure, each tape, and I created two or three units of conviction. In other words, reasons to buying now that confirmed for each tape. Let me be specific and show you what I did. I would go through, like the first tape. And the first tape on there was something about, uh, basically managing your attitude, I believe it was. And the diseases of attitude. It was the kinds of emotions and habits that some of us have that destroy us from succeeding. So rather than just talk about it and saying, "Yeah, this is a really great tape, and you'll find this to be very valuable." I would not tell. I would set things up. I would say something like, "The most important thing you will ever do in your life is learning to manage your emotions. And if you don't do that in your lifetime, every dream you have will eventually become something that won't come into reality. You'll eventually miss out on your dreams. And the reason I say that is because so many people think their life's going to work out, but it doesn't. And the reason it doesn't is these diseases of attitudes stop them." And then what I say is, "So the reason I say this is by using this tape, what it could mean to you." And then I give him a benefit. "It could mean for the first time in your life, maybe really being able to create consistent attitudes that support you, which really means to you." And I'm saying, "What that really means to you is money in your pocket as a salesperson, because if you don't manage your state, you and I both know you're going to lose out, aren't you?" I said, "And I'd say, have there been times when you've done that?" And I've gotten evidence from them. "There have been times when you didn't manage your state and it cost you money." And they go, "Well, yeah." "How much money did it cost you?" And they'd tell me. The best evidence is when the customer gives it to you because you ask them a question. And I'd say, "Well, my purpose right now, so I'm not trying to sell them, I'd say, my purpose right now is just to get your answers to a few questions. Is that okay?" "Well, sure." "Let me ask you a question. In your opinion, do you feel that if you were able to consistently be able to manage these attitudes that have stopped you, that you would in fact be able to create the kind of results that you've always dreamed about?" "Well, sure." Then I'd say, "Well, in your opinion." And I would do each of these are called test closes. Reason it's called a test close? I'm not saying, "So do you want to buy now?" I'm not saying, "Do you want to buy this or that?" I'm testing. I'm using a barometer to see where is the customer? How much enthusiasm, how much conviction does this person have for buying right now? That's the whole purpose of a test close. The difference between a test close and a close is a closing question is a question that basically, person answering it means they bought. A test question or a test close, which is your best friend in the world, a test close is an opinion-asking question. And you can make anything a test close by adding the words "in your opinion." "Do you feel?" If I say to you, "What should you do?" That's a close. Now you're committing for sure. I say, "Well, in your opinion, if you're going to make a decision, what do you feel will be the best decision? Do you think this would make a difference in your life or not? What do you think, generally?" Now, it's an opinion. You're more comfortable, and you're more likely to be able to give me some commitments. Does that make sense to you? Test closing is the single most important skill you probably have to know where you are at any time and know when to close. Because as you'll hear me say several times in the closing section, "How to close is easy. When to close is the real question." And if you know when to close, you're in great shape. And the test close helps you to do that. But let's come back here for a moment. And that is this: I would ask them, "So, in your opinion, do you feel?" And I would ask them, "Do you feel would do this and this?" And they'd say, "Yes." And what I usually do is, you think of these as the claim is number one, the fact is number two, the benefit is number three, and and the fourth benefit is number four. This is the most powerful benefit. This is money in your pocket. This is something that's directly related to them. So I'd say, "In your opinion, do you feel that making more money and having the opportunities you want would really occur if you were able to consistently manage your state through a tape like this?" "Well, yeah." And I'd say, "Well, how much do you think that would be worth in your life?" "Go, well, I don't know." And I'd say, "Well, and I'd use contrast. I'd say, "Well, do you think it'd be worth $1,000 in your lifetime over the next couple years? $5,000? $10,000? $20,000?" They said, "Well, I don't know." "Would it be worth at least $1,000?" "Well, sure." I say, "Really? Are you just saying that, or is it really worth a thousand?" "Oh, yeah. I mean, of course, it'd be worth more than a thousand." So I'd have one tape now, and have a unit of conviction that I'd pour over here that says, "This tape's worth how much? $1,000 by itself." And I'd really get them convinced by them convincing me. And I'd say, "Well, if you use." And I'd run them through another one. I'd say, "Okay, well, here's this tape, you know, by using this tape." And I'd state a claim. I say that because I give them a fact, then I'd say, "Which means to you, the reason I say that is this means to you blank benefit, which really means if you do that, it'll really mean to you blank benefit, another benefit." And the reason I say that is, I give them some evidence or ask for evidence, get them to feed it to me right now. Let me just ask you a question. "In your opinion, do you feel?" And then I come back and say, "Would you get this benefit? In your opinion, do you feel you'd get this benefit? Do you feel that this is really a fact?" As you get up here, somebody may start to give you an objection, but I keep asking these things, and I finally get up to the point where I've test closed enough that I know it's time to close the sale. And I'll explain how to do that. But right now, just understand these first seven steps and where they're taking you. This is how to go from a claim to a close. And the way we do that is keep creating more and more units of conviction. Now, how many facts and features are there about your product or service that you could turn into features? Hey, listen, if you can take six cassette tapes, by the way, when I was done, I would add up what all these tapes were worth, and it was worth $12,000. And when I said that, I'd say, "Realistic, is that really true?" I would get them to convince me. "Yeah, in my life, I guess that's really true." I said, "Are you sure?" "Well, yeah, I guess it is." I said, "Great. Well, $12,000. Guess what? It doesn't cost $12,000. The tapes are only $295." And guess what? Guess what? When they started to weigh things out, and they're weighing the benefits over here versus the money they're giving up. Now, you say, "Come on, Tony, people are not that silly. They're going to see that this doesn't make sense. Those tapes aren't worth it." Yes, they are, because I did it systematically, and I got them to show me that the benefits were there. We built it up. You need to do the same thing with each feature of your product. The problem is, most salespeople do a presentation and they dump the whole load. I don't want you to do that. I'd like you to look at taking one feature at a time and drop another sack on the lever. And you know what? If you drop enough of them, and here's the lever, and over here is a reason for not buying, and over here are all these reasons why they should, pretty soon it's like you'll catapult the reason not to buy right off. And all of a sudden, you'll find yourself in this particular place where, sure enough, you're putting more and more on this side, as lifting them up, and now they're ready to buy. That's really what we're going for. So I have an assignment for you. And the assignment is this: I want you to take and come up with a sack full of units of conviction. Things that you're already prepared to go with any person you can immediately give them as a way to convince themselves to have the conviction that this is something they really should buy, that they're justified in buying this, that they'll get much more than what they're having to give up to get it. And what we want you to do is sit down, and I want you to come up with a dozen units of conviction. 12 of them. We're going to sit down and come up with a claim you can make about a feature or fact about your product, back it up with a fact, which means to you benefit, which means to you benefit, some evidence you can back it up with, know what to ask, and be able to ask a closing question. Those seven steps, so that by the time you're done, they have committed that these benefits are real for them, and you know you've got another sack on there. And if you just keep adding those, pretty soon you're going to have a person where they're absolutely convinced. So this is one way of doing it. The other way, of course, we talked about is having that congruency within yourself. So these words come through because you got to remember that what you say is not going to convince people anyway, how you say it. The problem is, most salespeople are thinking about what to say still, and not how to say it. The reason I want you to do this exercise is if you have, say, a dozen little formulas of facts about your product with two features to back it up and a closing question behind it, so that they're committed that there's real.

Value. There, you got a dozen of them. How would you feel walking into meetings now with customers? How would you feel when they started to kind of waver and not be convinced? All you do is reach in your bag and say, "Oh, okay, let me just give them another reason to buy, another reason to buy." Now, that links to benefits that they really, really want and need, and get them to tell me that it's absolutely true. Does this make sense to you? Great. Then let's go for it right now.

Let's take a few minutes, and when you come back, we're going to talk about this idea of test closing because I know it isn't 100% clear yet. It's not meant to be. When you come back, though, we're going to use test closes in a way that'll take away your fear of the word "no." So go to your job and hurry back. I'll see you in a few minutes.

So, to make certain you get all the value you can out of units of conviction, it's critically important you take the time to really memorize these. That is, the ones you've designed. Now, you've got to commit to memory and have them be automatic. Well, you cannot just deliver them because you know what to say, but you've actually practiced how to say it with conviction, with power. Uh, the whole idea of this is for you to be able to have any person who starts to give you reasons not to buy, and where you can immediately create a new balance, that is, take some of these ideas out and drop them down on your side of why they should buy. Now, and really be able to deliver it in a way where they believe you.

Now, to take the units of conviction one more time and create maybe a more clear picture in your head, take a look over here. What I've done is I've looked at a unit of conviction and consider it like a bag, like we've done over here, and it has seven elements within the bag. The primary element is the claim that you're making. You're making a big fat or a little fat claim. The difference between a big fat claim and a little fat claim is, a big claim is like something that'll change their whole life. A little claim might be about how one particular feature or fact about your product would benefit them. So you make your claim, then you say, "Because," and you give them a fact. And you go to step, step three, which is, "Which means to you," and you tell them a benefit. Go to step four, and the real benefit to you is, and you hammer home an even stronger emotional benefit. This one may be more logical. This might be a, a logical reason to buy. Now, this is more likely going to be, uh, emotional reasons for them to buy right now, that really get them at the gut level. And of course, benefits that they really want, not benefits that you just traditionally sell. Make sure that everything you're relating to them is based on what you've learned in the step where you've really qualified them.

Next step, step five: Support your claims with a simple amount of evidence. You don't have to back it up forever. Just give them the idea of what the evidence is. Most people try and prove something that somebody doesn't even doubt in the first place.

Step six: Get permission. And again, you'll want to memorize this phrase. So instead of rambling through it, "My purpose of this time is to get your answers to a few questions." It's real important to deliver that exact way, so you'll need to rehearse. "Is that okay?" You get permission to probe. And then you come and you do step seven. And this is the difference between what you've learned in the past. You do a test close, an opinion-asking question that by answering it, though, they're making a commitment to you, and they're saying, "Yes, I have conviction that the feature you've mentioned really is going to benefit me." In other words, I feel like, "Yes, you've put another one on this side, and I've got more reasons to buy." Now, because it's the whole purpose of this step, creating conviction, the whole idea is to get someone convinced where they have conviction that this is something they can justify buying. This is something they should do. We need to give them conviction that they have a problem. You need to help reinforce the fact that right now there's something they really want that they're not getting, or there's something they really need and they're not getting it, or there's something that's possible and it's not there. So you need to reinforce that conviction, and that it's logical, logically your product can solve that problem.

Now, they usually will. They'll listen to your facts and they'll believe them if you've done your work upfront and you've developed rapport. If they like you and they believe that you're an honest person and you have their interest in mind, you state a fact, they're more than likely going to believe it, aren't they?

E stands for exhibit. What's the difference between exhibit and demonstrate? Not a whole lot. The biggest difference, I would say, is when you exhibit something, maybe what you're going to do is you're going to give them evidence through time. I might demonstrate something for you right now. If I'm going to put an exhibit up, I might have something stay there and have you have expanses to be exposed to it, making results in your business through time, maybe for a week or two.

The next one for us is A, is we're given an analogy. Analogy is you show someone how something is like something else. So you say, "John, um, you know, marking this computer system to you, and I'm, I sense that maybe I can give you a better example. Do you know how in your business when your accounting department did this and this and that, how things really changed?" "Well, yeah." "That's very much like what'll happen when this computer system goes in, because when we do this, just like that, X, Y, and Z will happen." Oh, and now what it becomes is something that's more real for them. Becomes real evidence to buy. Now, so an analogy is another possibility.

T stands for testimonials. And testimonials are phenomenal if you can have some fabulous letters from people that are considered to be social proof movers and shakers talking about the quality of your product. Obviously, you're going to have an impact. If you can get letters from people this person knows somebody they know personally, that's even more power. So, of social proof. If you can get something like a videotape where a person is actually communicating and it's more real, all the more power for you.

And S stands for statistics. And statistics are like facts. They're only as good as your conviction when you talk about them and that you're accurate. And for myself, for example, if I don't talk about something very often and I don't know the statistic, I'll say, "The best of my memory is this. It's not exactly that, but it's within that range." So it's best not to just be direct unless you feel really convinced within yourself. Otherwise, it will not have weight as evidence. It can be looked at as something.

Now, let me give you an idea of how powerful all the things we've learned so far together can really weigh in helping you to basically create sales in areas where maybe you haven't before. First of all, if you're always test closing, you're going to be noticing the state that the customer's in, which is critical. You remember when we talked about in order to succeed, you've got to number one, know what your outcome is. If you're going to go communicate to someone, you got to know in advance what is it you want to sell? How do you want to go about doing this? What's the result you want? Two, you got to take action. You can't just think about it. You go obviously follow through as well. Three, you've got to pay attention and know what you're getting. Is your present communication style getting you closer or further away from the prospect and the goal of them buying? You have to develop, remember what we called sensory acuity, acute sensitivity to notice, am I getting closer or further away from my goal? And if it's not working, you need to simply make a change. If you say, "Tony, but I don't know what to do," do anything other than what you're doing, because what you're doing isn't working. Simply change your approach. And if that doesn't work, change again. If that doesn't work, change again. If you keep changing, you will find something that works, if you're committed and if you keep rapport.

So what can you look for and know whether or not they're in a buying state or not? Well, you already feel it in your gut. There are all kinds of elements when somebody's ready to buy. You can see it in their face. There's a big difference between somebody who's bored and somebody who's excited, and it primarily has to do with the amount of muscular tension in a person's face. When people are bored or frustrated or tired, sure enough, the muscles in the face tend to sag. When they're interested or excited or they have desire, the facial muscles tend to pull up slightly, and you can usually see that there's much more color in the face, the blood flow when someone is in a desiring state than is when they're not.

If while you're doing the test closing, you notice that the person has really begun to relax a lot more, just very relaxed compared to where you started, that is a buying sign immediately. Someone's relaxed, they're no longer really concerned. And so the more you can relax them, the better off. If when they talk to you, they're doing it a lot with open hands instead of being closed up, that body language is not always accurate, but it usually is a decent indicator that they're being open to your idea, and that there's a strong interest, and there's a good chance that this person is going to purchase.

Another example would be when somebody is scratching their chin or scratching their lips in this way. Usually what they're doing is they're weighing and they're considering. And for them to be considering, they must believe that there's a certain amount of value. They have some conviction that your product has real value for them. So when you see somebody scratching their chin in deep thought, the bottom line is they're paying attention to you. They're hearing what they're saying you're saying, and they're really going inside and trying to justify it. Usually at that point, if you can give them another unit of conviction, something gives them a logical way to justify what they're doing or a little more desire, you can kick them over the edge.

Another one is if while you're talking about your product, they just start to get real friendly with you. People start to get much more friendly. You know that they're in a buying state. And lastly, would be if all of a sudden you've put something in front of them like an application or something, and they begin to actually pick the application up, for example, or touch it, or they keep tapping the product, or they talk about the product as if they already owned it, or say, "Well, gosh, if I had this, I guess I could do this and this and that." All those are clear buying signs, and you should be incredibly excited at that point. You're now in a green light stage.

Example of how to put all these together. My selling career started by me answering an ad. I answered an ad saying, "Become a manager in training for $500 a week." And I went down to one of those meetings where, you know, they do a group presentation. Have you been to one of those where they do this giant presentation, throw all the stuff against the wall and see if somebody will stick? And I did. And it was selling cassette tapes, music tapes, door to door. And I was supposed to go in. They'd call up and say, "One of our guys or gals will be dropping by to basically give you a free gift and tell you a little bit about our company. What kind of music do you like? Do you like country, western, pop, or rock?" It was a pretty good cloth. Notice they controlled the focus of this person. They did not call and say, "Do you want to buy?" They called and said, "We'll be dropping by to give you a gift," which it's called inducing what? Reciprocation. And two, they said immediately, "Not, do you want us to come out, but what kind of music do you like?" By the way, we were not bringing out any form of music. We were bringing out a little, uh, gift certificate that said they could get one free portrait at a local photography studio. And that guy, when they came in, we'd give him a free photograph, and then of course, they owed him now, some reciprocation, and they'd end up buying all kinds of pictures. It was one interesting deal.

And so I went in there and I watched this thing, and I got excited about the product. And they had the largest catalog in the world of music. Anything had ever been recorded was on cassette tapes, all the way back to the '20s and '30s, and all the way up to today. And they offered a five-year guarantee on all their tapes. And I had used cassette tapes and had many of them eaten and didn't have a lot of money. So I thought, "God, that's great. Guarantee on their tapes, everything that's ever been recorded, and they do it at great prices." What I didn't realize was the whole game at the time. But they taught me a sales presentation that would close anyone. In fact, I got so good at it that one out of every three human beings that I sat in front of bought the product. Now, we're talking $1,000 worth of cassettes, walking in cold turkey, knocking on somebody's door, and all they've been told is they're going to get a free gift.

So sure enough, I'd knock on the door, talk my way in, give a two-hour presentation on why they should buy $1,000 worth of cassette tapes. And I'm talking about everything from achiever homes to belonger homes. And so sure enough, I'm inside this place and I'm trying to market and sell this thing. And what do I do? My sales presentation consisted of doing units of conviction. What would I do? I would describe to them how music has changed throughout the years in terms of the way it's being delivered to homes. And I would pull out a record and show it all scratched up and beat up and melted, and talk about, "Have you ever had this happen to you?" What am I immediately doing? I'm immediately opening up a wound. Something makes sense if they have albums, there's a wound that they have, and we're opening it right away. I'm saying, "This is the problem with albums. You spend all your money, you get your favorite thing, and then sure enough, by accident, you scratch it, and now your favorite music is gone." Then I take out an eight-track tape. And of course, the tape was taken out, and I explain why they rub against themselves and they burn out. And then I'd sell the value of a cassette tape. And I'd talk about what, how great the cassette tape was. And I could give you 50 advantages and benefits that they have by having cassette tapes.

Next step of my presentation was this. And think about all the elements you've learned and see the brilliance in the person who designed this, not necessarily my style or what I would market now, but the brilliance of the design is pretty incredible. I'd say, "Well, let me ask you a question. If you were going to build, if you were going to build, test close, you're going to build a tape library of music that you really liked over the years, how many tapes do you think you'd invest in a month if you were going to do something like that? Would you invest in like two tapes a month, four tapes a month, six tapes a month, or eight tapes a month? What do you think?" And they'd say, "Well, I don't know." I'd say, "Well, which one?" They say, "Well, probably two tapes a month." So I'd write down, "Two tapes a month." So that's 24 tapes a year. Is that about right? And what am I doing here? Test closing. And by doing that, getting commitments. And they're going, "Yeah." What did I use? I used what we called an "as if" frame. I asked them a test close. "Well, if you were going to do this, then what would you do?" And I gave them lots of examples. And of course, they pick the smallest one. What if I would have said, "Do you think you'd build a library or not?" Some say, "Well, I don't think so." But by doing that, all of a sudden, they now commit a 24. And I'd say, "Is that really reasonable to you? Do you think that, does that really make sense?" And they go, "Well, yeah, I mean, 24 seems, does that really?" "Sure." "Oh, yeah." And I get them to commit that that was really a real number.

Now, I go do my presentation. I'd say, "Here's why you should get your tapes from us. In building your library, we're going to do three things for you. We're going to give you everything that's ever been recorded in history, anything you want. Uh, this is the largest catalog in history. Anything you can tell me something you really want, we look it up, and sure enough, there it was. Bango, they're getting benefit, pleasure, they can get whatever they want. Get it to you, delivered directly to you. You don't have to go to a music store. Second thing, I'm going to guarantee your tapes for five years. Nobody else is going to do that. As you know, it's always thrown away." And I go through this whole presentation. I come down to the close. And my close was like this. So I'd say, "So, if we did all those things for you, would you give us your music business?" And they'd say, "Well, um, I guess so. But, you know..." I said, "Great." And I start to sign them up. And they go, "Whoa, wait a second. Um, we probably would, but the problem is, we don't have a tape player. We don't have a cassette player." And I'd say, "Say, oh, you're kidding me. Didn't the little girl on the phone ask you about that?" "Well, no, she didn't." "I said, 'Do you see the benefits in cassettes?'" And they said, "Oh, yeah, I see the benefits." Because what do they see? They see a chance to escape, right? Oh, yeah, the benefits are there. I said, "Are you, are you just saying that, or you know, do you really believe it?" "No, I really believe it. They are fabulous." "Are, do you think they're better than that?" "Oh, they're better than." "Do you think, well, yeah." "Well, you know, did I do a good job?" "Yeah, I mean, are you just saying this to make me feel good? I mean, if it wasn't for the fact that you don't have a cassette player, would you, would you give us your tape business? Would you really do 24 a year?" "Oh, yeah, we really would. You were great, that was fabulous. But, you know, we just don't have one. Sorry." I said, "Are you really being, are you being honest with me about?" "Oh, yeah, absolutely." And then I turn back, and I turn my back, and I come back and say, "Remember, we said we'd do three things for you if you bought your music from us." And then I reach down and pull out this tape player and slam it down the front and say, "By making these investments with us, this player that I've been demonstrating on is yours." You talk about a hard close. And I left that business because I didn't like the way it was set up. But I'll tell you one thing, there was no way out for a person. Why? Commitment and consistency was induced, reciprocation, tons of units of conviction, and people felt like they had no choice, and they began to justify and say, "Well, it is true. I mean, after all, all those benefits really are there, and I did agree to all these things." And a lot of people didn't want to buy, but now I would not do this presentation. Now, it would not feel good to me from my idea of integrity. But I want you to see just how powerful some of these particular tools are.

You talk about an incredible close that was there. So think about if you're going to operate from integrity and use the same kind of technology, having really qualified people, knowing what the real needs are. If you do it effectively, virtually no one can escape your grasp. That's why the integrity of really knowing who you're dealing with, really caring about them, and finding their real needs and filling them is so critical. And if you can't do it, turning them on over to somebody else or asking for a referral, because people respect and appreciate that. But I want you to get just how powerful this technology is. Most of us are influenced almost every single day by things we're not even aware of. We just kind of get pushed around from one place to another. I want you to be aware of this technology for two reasons: one, so you don't get taken advantage of, and two, so you can make a difference in other people's lives, not take advantage, but systematically assist someone in breaking through their fears. We're talking about some real power here.

So here's your assignment. What I want you to do right now is let's start to play with test closes. They are the way to get rid of your fear about the word "no." You don't have to worry about whether or not you're going to be able to close the sale because you're not going to ask them to buy until you know they're ready. So what I want you to do is design three types of test closes for your presentation. And I want you to come up with at least three for each type.

Three opening test closes. What are three things you can do to get some initial commitments and find out where they are, where's their level of interest, so you can either close them right now or know what you're up against?

Two, what kind of tradeoff or test closes can you offer? You know, as soon as you find out some of their fears or some of the reasons they might not buy, what can you contrast those against that's something they really want? What are some of the values they want most? And design three questions that you can use in your business with your product to do a tradeoff. You know, "In order to get this, would you be willing to give up that? Would you be willing to do this in order to get this?" Those are tradeoff closes.

And then thirdly, progressive test closes. "See if we were going to go ahead and do this thing, would you want to do it this time or that time?" And I want you to design three of those as well. Test closing is your greatest friend. And if you test close, are not ready, add some more conviction. If you do both of these things, your presentation will come to life. And there's only one more element to make this person compelled, because that's the next stage. The person is now enrolled. What have we done? We know who they are, what they want, what their psychic wounds are, what their greatest desires are. We've created conviction where they can justify that, hey, this could really meet my needs. We've test closed, and we know they're about ready to buy. Now, what we're going to do is compel them to buy by going to the next step called "Make it Real."

[Music]

All right, we covered a lot of territory today. I want you to make sure you show up tomorrow. Don't lose momentum. I'll see you then. Till then, live with passion. Okay, let's rock. Let's take action now.

You see, in this program, you've probably figured it out already, I hope you have. What we're doing is we're taking some time, some extra time, to build up your bag of strategies as well as your proficiency. In other words, our goal is by the time that you're finished with this program and in front of clients, and by the way, you should actually be working with your clients now and practicing this stuff so you don't actually have to wait till you're finished with the program. By the time you are finished, though, we're going to have these things already defined and a part of your identity. Said differently, it's going to be a part of who you are so that you do it naturally without having to think about it. We want it to be second nature with you. So congratulations on how far you've come already. We have just a few more steps to complete in this process.

So before you work on your test closes, I have a couple questions for you. Would it be worth 30 minutes of your precious time in order to be able to test close any prospect at any time on your product or service with ease? In order to achieve this level of mastery of your material, would it be worth it? Would it be worth 30 minutes, just 30 minutes of your time? Does this seem like something you want to go ahead and do? Just a little test close with you. How did I do?

So have fun with this and be sure to write your test closes today. Write them down on paper. You know how important that is. Then, of course, join us on the next session for the beginning of phase three, which is compel. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you [Music] tomorrow.