Ben Franklin Close

A Sales Closing
Technique for the Ages

This technique makes tough decisions easy and should help you to close the deal more often than not. Here's how it works...

Imagine yourself (the salesman) sitting at a desk across from Mr. and Mrs. Smith while negotiating their new car purchase. Mr. and Mrs. Smith originally came to the dealership with the intent of buying a car, but were firm in their own minds on not taking on payments of more than $300 a month.

You've gone back and forth a couple of times and all the other numbers are agreeable to them, but the one thing stopping them from buying the car is that the payments will be $328 a month. That's $28 a month more than they expected/wanted to pay, but they love the car and and are straddling the fence and leaning heavily towards saying no. Enter the Ben Franklin close...

"Mr. and Mrs. Smith, I can see that this is a tough decision for you to make. If I may, I'd like to share with you something that a brilliant man, in fact, he was one of America's greatest men, used to do when he faced a tough decision in his life."

While saying this begin to pull out a sheet of paper and lay it flat on the desk.

"This mans name was Benjamin Franklin, I'm sure you both know who he was, right?"

"Yes."

At this point draw a line down the center of the paper.

"What he would when he could not decide the best course of action was to...

Write Pros on the left side of the line and Cons on the right side of the line

...weigh the Pros and Cons involved and make his decision based on which side had more reasons to do or not to do something."

"Let's start with the Cons. I know you were a little hesitant about the $28 (use the smaller $28 instead $328), so we'll write $28 under Cons. Were there any other things we should list under the Cons section?"

"No. No. We love the car."

Here's where the fact finding you've done up to this point really comes in handy.

"OK. Let's move over to the Pros side. You had mentioned that you wanted:

• A red car, write "Beautiful Red"
• A sporty car, write "Sporty and Fun"
• Nice ride, write "Smooth Ride"
• Low miles, write "Low Miles, Near New"
• A four door, write "Spacious Four Door"
• Leather seats, write "Plush Leather"
• A large trunk, write "Spacious Trunk
• A safe car, write "Safe 5 Star Rating"
• Good gas mileage, write "30+ MPG"
• Good power, write "Great Get Up and Go."

(The more you can add the merrier!)

Boy, it sure looks like this is the right car for you. For only pennies a day, you will be the proud new owner of a beautiful red, sporty and fun, low mile, near new, spacious four door, with plush leather seating, room for a small Volkswagen in the trunk, 5 star safety rated, 30+ MPG car that has great pep and can really get up and go! This decision sure looks like an easy one, wouldn't you agree."

"It is exactly what we want, yeah let's do it."

"Congratulations! You've made a smart decision. I just need your authorization here and I'll have your new car brought around to be prepped for you to take it home."

Voila! The Ben Franklin close has proven once again that it's easy to make wise decisions when you weigh the Pros vs. Cons. It's not too shabby as a sales closing technique either.

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