The Closer's Curse
"Wow. What an incredible conversion rate!" I say to myself while watching the Heaven's Gate Cult of Cults docuseries on HBO Max. Their first big pitch in the late '70s to join their UFO Cult closed, to my estimates, nearly 15% of the room.
It's hard to pull those numbers selling a $500 product on a webinar, what to speak of what they were pitching.
You renounce all possessions.
You leave your family behind.
You'll live in the woods.
You must go now.
I had to fight the urge to see if there was a recording of that pitch. I wanted to study it because good technique is a tool - you can use it morally yourself even if the source material didn't. What was the opener? When was the call to action? Were there multiple calls to action? Was social proof utilized?
Egad.
Once you're a closer, it's hard to turn off. To us closers, a pitch isn't a pitch - it's poetry. Closing isn't theoretical - you know if you knocked it out of the park or if you got knocked on your ass. How many bought? How many didn't?
Closing is one of the most accurate measurements of human psychology. People vote for all sorts of stuff in all kinds of ways. But never more than with their wallet. Ask someone: "Hey, if I were to create this product, would you buy it?" They'll likely say yes, and believe it. But if you pulled the product out and proffered: "Cash or card?"
Squirm.
I love closing because until you commit, you stay within your existing capabilities. Once closed, you put money down and declare to yourself and the world that you're ready to expend those capabilities. Indeed, most products you buy don't improve you. Change is hard. But the attempt to trade money for the possibility of growth - I honor that.
How bad do you want it? Put some money on it.
Closer's always want to close, even when we shouldn't. Sometimes we sell people who aren't ready yet. But we weren't prepared when someone first closed us. Closers would rather shoot and miss than not take the shot.
Closes don't just sell others - they sell themselves. Constantly. A closer always wants to be better, always wants more. We once had a webinar with over 3,000 people on it that sold a $3497 product and converted at 11.2%. The team was popping champagne bottles. I was more concerned that nearly 9 out of 10 said no. Another time we promoted a launch and had the bright idea to stay up until the close of that launch - midnight pacific time. It was 2 AM my time when we wrapped up the webinar. I hopped on the phone with my business partner Wilson Mattos. We celebrated for a few minutes, then spent an hour in an ad-hoc post-mortem on what could be improved.
Unhealthy.
I believe I've grown since then, but probably not as much as I think. At least now, I didn't hunt down the Heaven's Gate pitch and study it to figure out if there was any technique I could learn and make ethical and use to help someone someday.
But I had to fight the impulse.