Preneur Marketing - The Blog of Entrepreneur Pete Williams

My mum has always been a huge chess fan, there was a stage when I was younger where we played together often… That period didn’t last very long though, because she was the one who often got to signify victory with the almighty cry of “Checkmate”, not me - and I hated that with a passion as I am not a good loser.

In business however, checkmate occurs when a customer says YES, opens their wallet and decides to take you, the salesperson, up on an offer.

Traditionally this ‘checkmate position’ would be known as ‘the almighty close’.

However, since any “checkmate decision” actually takes place in the brain of the customer, that buying decision is really outside the salespersons control - and thus makes closing the sale an impossibility…

This is the theory of Newsell (where the customer, not the salesperson, closes the sale) put forth by Michael Hewitt-Gleeson, one of the greatest thinkers ever and the man whoco-founded the School of Thinking, with Edward de Bono, in New York in 1979.

Michael defines “checkmate” as occuring when a customer says I’ll buy it and offers her credit card, or when a buyer accepts the deal and signs the purchase order… or in show business, it’s when the director says, “You’re in!” and you get the part you auditioned for.

The main strategic feature of the checkmate situation is: the salesperson (you) CANNOT control checkmate.

In this “newsell” approach all the saleman can control is the check position…

And, the check position signifies any type of customer contact:
– check is a unit of measurement for ‘customer contact’
– check = CUSTOMER CONTACT = check
– check is when your meme enters the customers brain
– check is when one customer WOMs (word-of-mouth) another customer
– check is when it is possible for the customer to say NO or YES
– without check there can be no checkmate– check is the penultimate state, the set-up move for checkmate
– check is the position of the energy switch which makes it possible for checkmate to happen.

Whether you are making offers directly in person, via direct mail, an email auto-responder or even leaving messages on customers voicemail, in business, check is the moment of ANY customer contact.

Check occurs when you have put the prospect in a position that allows them to say YES or NO as a result of an offer made by you. In other words, the customer’s brain has been stimulated by some form of communication (check), so that the customer can/will respond by deciding whether to act or not to act - YES or NO.

Check is when;
– …you ask the customer a buying question
– …you mail the proposal
– …you meet in a boardroom for a presentation
– …you offer a free taste-test in the supermarket
– …you send out a press release to the media
– …you make the follow up call, after an earlier ‘check move’
– …you give an elevator speech; or
– …a hooker asks if you need some company for the night

The fundamental rule of Check Move Theory is that you the salesperson, CAN and must control check… It’s not about trying to “close the sale” with some ‘used-car-salesmann-swindle’, it’s about making as many “check moves” as possible… The more check moves you make, the more opportunities prospects have of saying YES.

On his website, ‘New Sell Coaching’, Michael Hewitt-Gleeson offers a free e-mail course which go’s into much more detail on ‘check move theory’ and covers things like – The UnCheck Position – What An OldSell Check Is – How To Implement A Check X10 Sequence – The T.C.B. – Even More Types of CheckMoves Pardon the punn, but “Check Out” the ‘New Sell Coaching Course’ and sign-up today here.

P.S. The really ironic thing about Michael’s course, is that he doesn’t try and sell a single thing throughout the course… Yep, not even one check is offered during the whole email course.



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