Not long ago, I ran into one of my graduates on an airplane. He is a very successful, high-earning commercial real estate agent. He told me that he had been working for six months on a complex deal involving a trade for cash, land, and commercial buildings with a large financial institution and a real estate conglomerate. He had been going back and forth on this transaction with the vice president for several weeks, but was unable to get him to come to a conclusion.
Finally, he got back together with his client and said, “Why don’t we use the Ben Franklin decision-making method on this?”
He said he was surprised that the vice president agreed immediately. He pulled out a sheet of paper, drew the line down the center, and then went through the features and benefits in favor of this offering, one by one, for about half an hour. He then asked the vice president, the decision maker, to write down his opposing reasons. As expected, the vice president could only think of two or three reasons why they shouldn’t go ahead with the transaction. At the end of this process, the vice president compared the two lists, looked back up at the real estate agent, and said, “Let’s do it!” And the deal was sealed.
The agent told me, “Brian, I had heard about that Ben Franklin close for years, but I thought it was a bit corny, so I never tried it. But when I used it the first time, my commissions on that sale were more than I had earned in the entire previous year. It was quite amazing.
