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The Ben Franklin close is designed to make people feel better when they have trouble making up their mind.
This strategy is named after one of America’s greatest statesmen because when he couldn’t make up his mind, he would simply:
- Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle.
- On the left-hand side he’d list all the reasons for going ahead with the project (pros).
- On the right hand side, he would list all the reasons for not going ahead with the project (cons).
- If the reasons for going ahead exceeded the reasons for not going ahead, he would decide to proceed.
Example during an interview or review:
- Use this strategy when employers have trouble making up their minds.
- To make it work you need to explain to the employer how the analysis will be done and then get his/her agreement that he/she will go along with this method before you go ahead with the analysis.
- Help them list the pros of hiring you (for example: “You do agree that a Business Finance degree is a big plus?) and leave them on their own for the cons.
- Following this method the right way, the list of positives has to exceed the list of negatives …you will get the employers agreement.