I saw a tense dog-man standoff at a park near my house.
The dog, a German boxer, was on top of a little hill. The man, the dog’s owner, was at the bottom of the hill, calling to the dog to come down.
The dog stared and didn’t move. The man called again. The dog continued to stare.
Eventually, the man started to walk away. The dog still kept his spot on top of the hill, and didn’t budge.
And then, as the man was walking away, he slowly took out a bright yellow object from his pocket. The dog started charging full speed down the hill. The man put the yellow object to his lips and started to blow. (It turned out to be a balloon.)
The dog was there in a second, bouncing up and down as the man held the balloon just above the height that the dog could reach.
Now for the past few days, I’ve been writing about alternatives to asking yes-seeking questions. So far, I talked about vision-building questions and no-seeking questions — both of them based on what negotiation expert Jim Camp used to teach.
Well, today I have something out of the playbook of email marketing guru Ben Settle. In fact, it’s something I’ve talked about in this blog already. It’s what I called Ben’s “sink-or-swim” close. That’s when you tell your prospect something like:
“If you don’t believe this technology/service/information can help you be more competitive, then simply don’t buy it.”
And then you wait and allow them to make a decision.
Of course, you have to do a good job painting a vision before you do this. And as Ben likes to say, you have to do it on principle, rather than as a tactic. In other words, you have to be confident you’ve got a good offer, and you have to accept that even so, some people still won’t buy.
Not everyone is right for your offer and that’s ok. Because when you find a prospect who’s right for your offer, you’ll see something like I saw at the park.
They’ll think. They’ll stare. And they’ll start to move. Next thing you know, they’ll be charging down the hill towards that big yellow balloon you’ve put in front of their face, and you will soon have a sale.
At least, that’s how it worked with me in the case of the sales letter that Ben sent.
Anyways, if you don’t need sales emails like this written for your business, then, you know, that’s ok. Otherwise, you can get an idea of how to write them yourself, with a free copy of my upcoming book on email marketing for the health space. More info here: