Secrets of Closing the Sale

by Zig Ziglar

The “Tennis Racket” Close I’m confident I am accurate with the statement that every veteran salesman has completed a presentation to a husband-wife team only to be confronted with this dialogue: Husband: “What do you think, honey?” Wife: “Well, that’s entirely up to you.” Husband: “No, you’d be the one to use it.” Wife: “Yeah, but you’d be the one to pay for it,” and he says . . . and she says . . . and he says . . . and back and forth it goes. When this happens, you can rest assured that one of the three situations exists. Number one, both of them want to say yes; number two, neither of them wants to say yes; or number three, one votes yes and one votes no. However, you can be even more certain that neither one of them wants to make the decision. Each one keeps knocking the ball back to the other one’s court by saying, “You make the decision.” Since they are knocking the ball back and forth across the net, we call this one the “Tennis Racket” Close. It’s important you understand that if you just sit on the sidelines and watch the “game” and permit them to knock that ball across the net more than a couple of times, one of them (and most of the time it’s the husband) will smile and say, “I know we’re going to buy your product, but unfortunately, she can’t make up her mind.” Handle It This Way Here’s how you avoid that situation. After the couple has knocked that decision ball back and forth across the net a couple of times, hold up your hand and say, “Scuse me.” (In some se...