The Ping Pong Close

It is called the Ping Pong Close for a reason. Let’s set this up, the context. In fact, this idea came from one of the members of our Facebook group. The context is they were in a scenario, they’re in a home. Both decision-makers were there. In this case, it was a husband and wife. We all know that it could be partners, it can be whoever, but the important part is it’s a two decision-maker process. Everybody’s involved. It’s there. Most of the time, it’s husband and wife but there are all kinds of scenarios then. In this case, the wife, and in this context, you’ve done a great job at your presentation. You did your intro right. You set your credibility pieces. You closed all the objection doors before they opened before you ever got there. Everything went smoothly.

You’re sitting at the table, it’s time for the close. They’ve even narrowed it down and decided on which level of equipment they want to move forward with. They’ve decided which accessory packages are also going to be included. All of that is decided. In fact, in this case, it was a big zone system. It was an $18,000 project or something like that. If I remember right when he was telling me, the wife seemed excited about it. She was showing all of the buying signs. She’s got the eyes, she’s nodding her head. She’s got her eyebrows raised and she keeps smiling. She’s almost elbowed and kept looking at her husband. She’s ready to go. It all makes sense to her. On a scale of 1 to 10, the husband’s energy is about a 6 to 7. He likes the project and it makes sense. There’s no confusion in what the accessories do.

There’s no confusion in the project. That’s clear. There’s no confusion in the pricing. They’re going to finance it. They’ve decided the financing works best. Everything is decided. The objection that he keeps bringing up is, “I can’t make this big of a decision in one night,” which as we all know is another version. It’s a variation on, “I want to think about it.” The, “I want to think about it,” is as we know a smokescreen for something else that’s going on in his mind. What do we do? In this case, this is the perfect scenario to use what is called the Ping Pong Close.

“What is the Ping Pong Close,” you say? It could be either this scenario where one person is into it and the other person is halfway. It could also be the scenario where it seems like both decision-makers are excited about the project, it seems like they are unsure about how the other person feels. This is a perfect way to close this one down. First of all, go with the person who’s the most excited about it. In this case we’re going to use, let’s say Johnson as the last name. We know the wife is the one that’s more excited and she’s ready to go. You can tell from all the buying signs. I would say, “Mr. Johnson, do you mind if I talk directly to your wife for a moment?” He’s a little taken aback like, “Yeah, I guess so.” Nobody’s ever told me no in this case. “Hypothetically speaking, Ms. Johnson, if your husband were to turn to you and said, ‘I feel great about this project. Why don’t we go for it?’ What do you think? What would you say?” She’s excited about it already. She’s going to say, “I would say, ‘That’s great. Let’s go ahead and do it.’”

At that point, you turn to Mr. Johnson and then you ask Ms. Johnson, “Ms. Johnson, would you mind if I talked to Mr. Johnson directly for a moment?” At this point, they’re starting to grin, they understand what’s going on and then she’ll say, “Sure.” You say, “Mr. Johnson, if Mrs. Johnson were to look at you directly and say, ‘I feel great about this project, it all makes sense to me. Why don’t we go ahead and do it?’ What would you say?” He is going to look at her. They’re going to look at me. He’s going to look at you. He’s going to laugh and say, “Yeah, that sounds good. Why don’t we go ahead and do it?” What was going on, in that case, is he was unsure about what she thought about it. She was unsure about what he thought about it. You answered that for them by hypothetically having them speak to you directly. That’s the Ping Pong Close.

When they’re ping-ponging back and forth and I’m going to go through it all quickly without the explanations. It’s so you can hear it all back together because it’s powerful. This is a powerful close that it takes the pressure off and the psychology behind it is it takes the pressure off the clients. It takes the pressure off and they’re like, “Okay.” This is important and this is a key aspect that I want you to get. It’s not about the words because the words are only 7% of what they’re hearing. At this point, you’re going low and slow because it’s to the money part, but here is where you get a little bit of fun. You can play with it a little bit, throw some fun into it, but it’s all about the tonality and your tone of voice.

Your tone of voice is extremely important in this close and the tone of voice you want to use, the tone of voice you want to employ is the money aside. It’s the money aside tonality that hypothetically speaking, money aside because what you’re saying is you’re asking Ms. Johnson if Mr. Johnson said, “I feel good about this,” but the tone of voice you want to use is, “Ms. Johnson, if Mr. Johnson were to look at you and say, ‘I feel great about this project, why don’t we go ahead and do it?’ What would you say?” My tone of voice was much money aside. I didn’t have to say hypothetically speaking because it was understood. Mentally, subconsciously, even though they know you are asking for a buying decision for thousands and thousands of dollars at that moment, the psychology behind the tone of voice completely almost takes them out of the situation for a minute. It takes the pressure off and gives them the ability to clear their mind and think. What happens in this situation when you’re sitting at the kitchen table and you’re asking for money, you’re asking for a commitment.

As a society, our globe, people are scared of commitment as it is. In order to take somebody from blind date to marriage proposal with a commitment in 1 hour or 45 minutes, it takes a lot of overcoming psychological things. When we understand them and we can recognize them, that’s when we’re able to step right past them. By using that money aside, hypothetically speaking tone of voice like, “Ms. Johnson, if Mr. Johnson asked you, he says, ‘I feel great about this. This project looks good.’ What would you say?” She says, “Let’s go for it.” You do the same thing with Mr. Johnson. Let’s do the whole thing from start to finish so you’ll learn it in its entirety.

We’re sitting at the kitchen table. They’re back and forth. One decision-maker, in this case Mrs. Johnson is excited about the project and Mr. Johnson keeps saying that he can’t make that big of a decision in a single night. Which we know is a smokescreen for a variation of, “I want to think about it,” which is a smokescreen for something else altogether. The Ping Pong Close, here we go. “Mr. Johnson, would you mind if I spoke directly to your wife for a moment?” He says, “Sure.” I said, “Great.” “Ms. Johnson, if Mr. Johnson looked at you and said, ‘I feel great about this project, it all makes sense. Let’s go ahead and get on the calendar.’ What would you say?” She says, “I would say, ‘Yeah, that sounds awesome. Let’s do it.’” “Mrs. Johnson, may I speak directly to Mr. Johnson for a moment?” “Sure.” “Mr. Johnson, if Mrs. Johnson looked at you and said, ‘Honey, I feel awesome about this project. Everything makes sense. It’s going to accomplish what we want to accomplish. Our house is going to be fixed finally. I want to get this done.’ What would you say?”