Buyers are slower right now. More people in the room, more scrutiny, more "let me get back to you." 🐬

You know the scene. A great call. The buyer says "Sounds good, send me a proposal." You send it that evening. Then.. silence. A week later the deal smells stale.

So the pressure builds. And most founders react in one of two ways. They start chasing. Or they start pushing.

Both lose the deal. And every lost deal keeps you as the only closer in the company, working evenings to make up the gap.

More than 2,300 years ago, Aristotle wrote the clearest answer I know to the basic question of sales: how do you handle people, and in what order? It's in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics. His answer: the winning move sits between two mistakes, and it comes at the right time. It reads like a sales manual.

Every virtue sits between two mistakes

Aristotle didn't see a virtue as the opposite of one vice. He saw it as the point between two. Too little on one side. Too much on the other.

Courage sits between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity between stinginess and waste. Truthfulness between false modesty and boasting.

His word for it is hexis: a trained habit of choosing the middle. Not a mood. Not a talent. A habit. 🐯

In sales, that mean has a name. Control.

The needy side is too little.. chasing, discounting, "just checking in."

The pushy side is too much.. pitching in minute three, forcing a close before the buyer has felt anything.

Control is neither. Calm, direct, and in order.

Aristotle's table, translated to a sales call

Facing fear. Too little: you never ask for the starting date. Too much: you name the price before the buyer has named the problem. The mean, courage: you ask the hard question at the right moment, then stay quiet.

Giving. Too little: you hold back every insight until they sign. Too much: three calls of free consulting and a 14-page proposal nobody asked for. The mean, generosity: one real insight that makes them think, then a clear ask.

The truth about yourself. Too little: "We're a small team, we can be flexible on price." Too much: a 40-slide deck about you. The mean, truthfulness: what you do, what it costs, said plainly.

Anger. Too little: you accept ghosting as normal. "No worries!" Too much: the passive-aggressive fourth follow-up. The mean, good temper: you name what happened and ask for a clear yes or no. 🌴

Humor. Too little: a script read like a hostage statement. Too much: trying so hard to be liked you forget to lead. The mean, wit: relaxed enough to be human, serious enough to steer.

The mean is relative to you, and to them

Aristotle's example is an athlete's diet. If 10 pounds of food is too much and 2 is too little, 6 is not automatically right. A wrestler needs far more than a beginner.

Same on a call. No script hits the mean for every buyer. A founder burned by three agencies needs more time on the frustration. A CEO who already decided needs you to get out of the way and ask for the date.

That's why scripts break and process holds. A script tells you what to say. A process tells you what to find out, and when.

Five rights. One of them is the order.

Aristotle says acting well means acting toward the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, for the right purpose, in the right way.

• Right person: an owner who wants to grow and is hiring salespeople. Not everyone who books a call.
• Right extent: enough pressure for a decision. Not so much that they start defending themselves.
• Right time: this is where deals die. The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing. A proposal before the buyer has said what doing nothing costs is the wrong time.
• Right purpose: their outcome, not your quarter.
• Right way: questions, not claims. The buyer says the consequence out loud. Not you.

"Right time" is why we practice the 8 Steps of the Repeatable Sale in this order: 1 Visualize, 2 Frustration, 3 Importance, 4 Cost of Inaction, 5 Deliverables, 6 Investment, 7 Starting Date, 8 Statement of Work. 🐬

Step 4 before Step 6. The buyer names the cost before you name the price, so your number sits next to theirs. That's how a deal stays the size you wanted, at your price.

Step 7 before Step 8. A date before the document.

Same steps, wrong order, and you're begging. Right order, and you're in control.

Some things have no mean

Aristotle is clear: there is no moderate amount of theft. No well-balanced malice.

Sales has its own list. Fake urgency. Invented scarcity. A made-up client story. "I loved your last podcast" when you never heard it. There is no balanced dose of manipulation. The right amount is zero.

Control never needs a trick. Tricks are what people reach for when they don't have it. 🐯

Bend the crooked stick

Aristotle's practical advice fits on a sticky note.

1. Know your pull. After a good call, what do you do? Rush the proposal out "while they're warm"? That's the needy pull. Talk them into it before they've felt the problem? That's the pushy pull. You already know which one is yours.

2. Bend past center. A stick bent left has to be pulled past straight to the right before it settles straight. If you lean needy, practice the move that feels almost too direct: "To which starting date are we committing?" It will feel like a lot. It's the mean.

3. Watch out for pleasure. The most dangerous sentence in sales is "Sounds great, send me a proposal." It feels like a win. Usually it's a polite exit. Being liked tastes sweet in the moment. It's also what makes you skip Step 4 and Step 7, and the aftertaste is a deal that dies at 95%. 🌴

Virtue is a habit. So is control.

Aristotle again: we become brave by doing brave things. A hexis is built by reps, not by reading.

Same here. Set the week on Monday. Score it on Friday. One call where you lead. Then the next one. That's what the Sales Gym is for: the tools, the process, and spotters who push you through the wall you can't see from inside. More than 2,400 B2B founders have trained this way with us, and the moment that sticks is the first call where they lead, and the buyer says yes.

Picture your next good call. The buyer names what doing nothing costs them. You name your price right next to that number. And they ask you which date you can start.

Control in the sales conversation, plus your evenings back.. that's Sprintlife. 🐬

Your one move this week: before your next call, write down which side you lean. On the call, ask "What happens if you do nothing?" Then stay quiet for five full seconds. You'll feel the urge to fill the gap. Let them fill it.

Want the tools, the AI skills and a room full of founders practicing this every week? Join Sprint Club, 7 days free: https://www.strategysprints.com

Ready to accelerate now? Book a Discovery Call: calendly.com/strategysprint/discovery-call

Happy hunting.

Simon & The Sprinters 🐬⚡️🐆