One on One: The Secrets of Professional Sales Closing by Ian Seymour
Summary
Ian Seymour’s One on One distils the tactics, mindset, and discipline required for professional sales closing. While aimed at salespeople, it also serves as a defensive playbook for customers, revealing how to recognise and counter common persuasion techniques.
Seymour blends attitude training, psychological tactics, and practical scripts to improve closing success or to avoid being closed.
Key Insights
Mindset & Habits: Persistence outweighs talent; enthusiasm and a positive attitude are contagious. Success comes from ambition, organisation, preparation, knowledge, and self-motivation.
Confidence from Mastery: True confidence is built through skill and experience, not empty affirmations.
Finding the Hook: Identify the customer’s wants or needs and satisfy them.
Psychological Positioning: Moving the customer physically (e.g., to another seat) subtly shifts power.
Creating Urgency: Low stock, imminent price rises, or “last few available” prompts quick decisions.
The Deliberate Mistake: Give an incorrect (lower) price, then “realise” the error — but honour it to create goodwill.
Influencing Partners: Focus on the spouse, offer small gifts to create obligation.
Professionalism & Rapport: Smile, maintain eye contact, use their name, share personal details, ask for advice, use assumptive language (“when you own…” not “if you own…”).
Framing Language: Avoid “sign” (use “approve”), “contract” (use “agreement”); give closed choices (“cash or cheque?”).
Defensive Awareness: Be alert to chair positioning, interruptions, deliberate delays, criticism — draw attention to them to neutralise their effect.
Negotiation Discipline: Don’t yield to pressure, only to reason. Recognise tactics like half-hearted acceptance, derisory offers, escalating demands — and walk away if necessary.
Verification & Countering: Always question statements (“How did you arrive at that figure?”). If told “I’ll check with my boss,” reply “I’ll check with mine.”
Prepare for Impasse: Know in advance what you’ll do if no agreement is reached.
Strengths
Comprehensive mix of positive selling behaviours and tactical countermeasures.
Emphasis on professionalism, rapport, and situational awareness.
Practical scripts and phrasing to steer conversations.
Weaknesses
Some tactics may feel manipulative in the wrong hands.
Old-school examples may not fit all modern sales environments.
Reflections
Seymour’s advice doubles as both a sales accelerator and a defensive shield. Understanding these techniques not only improves closing skills but also empowers buyers to stand their ground.
This book is a goldmine for people like me who have too often fallen victim to salesmen’s tricks. As a teenager, I fell for the classic “Will that be card or cash?” close. But having read this book, I now know their moves and how to counter them.
Conclusion
A hands-on manual for closing sales, and for recognising when someone’s trying to close you. Packed with memorable scripts, positioning tactics, and psychological principles that remain relevant decades after publication.
Book Details
Title: One on One: The Secrets of Professional Sales Closing
Author: Ian Seymour
Publication Year: 1994
Genre: Salesmanship
Reference: Skylark Vol. 1, p. 28
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