The main cause of the failure to bring the prospect to a favorable Decision--the first of the two final stages of the Closing--is that the Salesman has not done his best work in the preliminary stages of the Demonstration. He has not demonstrated the proposition properly, or has not awakened the Imagination and Inclination of the prospect to a sufficient extent. Many salesmen slight the preliminary process of the Demonstration in their anxiety to reach the Closing--but this is a great mistake, for no structure is stronger than its foundation. The Closing should follow as a logical and legitimate conclusion of the preceding stages. It should be like the result of a mathematical problem which has been carefully worked out. Of course it is impossible for any one Salesman to "sell them all," from the very nature of things--but the average man could sell a larger percentage of prospects if he would strengthen himself along the preliminary stages leading up to the Closing, and to the final steps of the latter. The gist of the whole matter of the failure of a prospect to make a favorable Decision is this: He hasn't been convinced! Why? If you can answer this question, you have the key to the problem. You haven't reached the man's desire. Why? If you can get him to "want" the thing, the decision is a mere matter of final settling down to choice. You may have said to the man, "This is a good thing--you ought to have it," over and over again--but have you actually made him see that it was a good thing and that he ought to have it? It is one thing to tell a man these things, and another to reproduce your own beliefs in his mind. The changing of the talk from that affecting Deliberation on the part of the prospect, to that influencing his Decision, is a delicate matter. There is a "psychological moment" for the change which some men seem to perceive intuitively, while others have to learn it by hard experience. It is the critical balancing point between "enough" and "too much" talk. On the one hand, the Salesman must beware of a premature Closing, and on the other he must avoid "unselling" a man after he has made the psychological sale. Some men are inclined toward one of these faults--and some to the other. The ideal Salesman has found the nice point of balance between the two. If the Salesman attempts to make a premature Closing, he will probably have failed to bring about the full desire and careful Deliberation in the prospect's mind. As a practical writer on the subject has pointed out, this course is as faulty as that of a lawyer who would attempt to begin his closing address to the jury before he had gotten in his evidence. The trained finger on the pulse should detect the "high-tide of interest," and close the demonstration at this point, moving surely and swiftly to the Closing.