If Even Bill Gates Uses The Ben Franklin (On Himself) So Can You
…even the broadsheets can’t resist
Well, the scourge of longterm marriage divorce blights another gazillionaire.
Bill and Melinda Gates have split. 27 years on from exchanging vows.
I remember way back before then. When gossip columnists were rife with whispers of the unimaginably wealthy tech boss giggling in office corners with a newbie in marketing.
The day of the couple’s announcement, it seemingly led all news channels.
Of all the tittle tattle compiled, there was this Sales-related nugget;
“[Bill] deliberated over [getting married] and, according to previous interviews given by Melinda, even made a list of pros and cons for marriage on a whiteboard”.
Currently the world’s fourth richest person, back when he wed he was already the world’s youngest billionaire and about to reach status of monetary top dog.
Unsure of a decision about to be made, I wonder if he was of the experienced school which suggests delay tends to be worse than taking the ‘wrong’ choice?
As a coder by trade, he would no doubt be familiar with one of the simplest of decision aid tools.
The two-column PROS versus CONS.
Often used in programming, from design to implementation, to trade off, rank or simply picture such as features, delivery time and structural elegance.
The first step; draw a line. Vertically down the board (or page).
At the top, you can label each column. For some reason, whatever the exact syntax, the ‘+’ gravitates left, ‘-‘ right.
Then fill in each column.
Point by point.
Tally for yourself which side ends up with greater weight.
For Bill, the Yeses clearly won out.
This is not quite the famed Ben Franklin Close.
For the crucial element missing is one of dialogue.
The trick in the furnace of a call’s close, is to help the prospect complete first the side to your advantage.
Then stay silent whilst they try to fill the other.
Unless of course, Bill was taking to himself for the first half only…
Anyway, we now have a beautiful window of a month or two when we can say to a prospect with a smile, “let’s do a Bill Gates, shall we?” And move closer to exchanging rings ourselves.
postscript: the broadsheet ‘above the fold’ snippet of the pic up top posted next day this on their instagram; trolling or a neat idea for a sales slide of our own one day..?