[Sidenote:  Decide For, Then Commit The Prospect]

My friend manifested complete confidence that the sale was closed.  By continuing the process of affirming the decision, he prevented the prospect from backing up after making his pencilled O.K.  Being thus committed informally, the usually vacillating advertiser could not well avoid using the pen put into his hand to sign the formal contract laid before him.  Without speaking to him, the salesman pointed to the dotted line while he called the telephone number he wanted. The prospect wrote his name before he had time to stop the impulse that the advertising agent had started. The salesman had both induced the mental decision in his favor, and impelled its pronouncement.  Really he first made up the prospect’s mind for him, and then committed him to the decision so made without the other man’s volition.

[Sidenote:  Both Processes In Right Sequence]

Only by performing both processes in right sequence at the closing stage can a sale be finished under the control of the salesman. If the favorable conclusion as to the respective weights of negative and affirmative is not first worked out before the mind’s eye of the prospect, anything done to commit him to a decision will likely kill the salesman’s chances for success.  The prospect whose mind is not yet made up favorably, who does not clearly perceive that the preponderance is on the “Yes” side of the scale, will almost surely say “No” if his decision is prematurely impelled.

[Sidenote:  Discriminate And Restrict]

Hence it is important that the salesman discriminate between the two closing stages, and that he restrict his selling methods at each stage to the selling processes that are effective then.  He must not get “the cart before the horse,” as the ignorant or unskillful closer is apt to do.  The poor closer does not understand the “discriminative-restrictive” process.  He lacks comprehension of the distinction that should be drawn between the methods he previously has used and what is now required to finish the sale.  Let us be sure we know how to discriminate; so that our work at the closing stage may be restricted to the processes that are required to assure success in taking the particular step necessary.

[Sidenote:  New Process Necessary To Close]

Throughout the series of selling steps that precede the closing stage, the continuing purpose of the salesman is to make the prospect see the proposal in the true light, as the salesman himself views it.  When the selling process draws to a conclusion, the purpose of the salesman changes.  Now he wants the prospect to decide and then act upon what has been shown to his mind’s eye.  If the salesman is to control the close, he must do something new to prompt decision and to actuate its pronouncement.