How to successfully close a sale

When do I close?

Tactical methods of selling, say that you should "assume the sale" as soon as the prospect shows any degree of interest.

Some sales professionals might disagree with my opinion, but as an ‘observer of people’ who has tried to learn what client’s might like and dislike...I have to say that I disagree with this assumption!

To "assume the sale" as soon as the prospect shows any degree of interest is annoying, very “salesy”, cheesy, and simply quite wrong in most cases.

Perhaps what amazes me more than anything is that despite how critical we all are of hard selling techniques with the accompanying ‘label’, it only takes a client to show the slightest interest in one item amongst the dozens being discussed, for us to go flying in feet first in ‘salesperson’ mode with hopeful cries of “I can do that for you!”

You've probably had it happen to you.

For example, you're in a car showroom, or worse, sitting through a timeshare sales presentation simply because they are throwing in a free case of local wine for attendance, not even thinking of buying, and the sales rep is filling out something that appears to be a contract and begin talking to you as if you had already bought it!

I remember when we moved house a few years ago and were looking for household goods, talking to a salesperson at an electrical appliances store who used the old ‘Assumptive Close’ on me:

"Where will we be delivering this?"

...to which I replied...

"I never said I even wanted it."

In this case I had not yet crossed the”emotional buying bridge” and felt uneasy about being subjected to the tactics. If anything, it only re-enforced my resolve to resist anything which seemed like pressure from that moment on.

Prior to that moment, I had almost forgotten that the person was there to sell, they were helping me, answering my questions, giving good advice, and suddenly I was being rudely pushed across ‘the bridge’ before I was ready.

Had they handled me correctly, I may well have walked across the bridge myself with the salesperson simply walking alongside me.

I believe that a far more successful approach is to create the belief that you are there to help and not to sell. You need to discover what it is that they actually need and then work on how you can successfully deliver the solution.

As you continue in that vein with each potential ‘sale’ which arises, it encourages the client to keep talking and waiting. It also encourages the client to keep thinking of other things to tell you in the hope that you will have other products or services that are solutions to their problems. Otherwise they will think of you as a salesperson and hold things back from you as each thing they say ends up with you using those dreaded words...

What are the "Signals" to look out for?

Your Action is to get them thinking more about the reasons why they are interested in doing something. This will fire up the problem or need driving them and reinforce it.

When they're on the bridge:
They speak in future terms of what they will get as a result of what you're offering. "I believe it's something that my business would benefit from."

Your Action is to ask more questions to strengthen their beliefs, "In what different ways do you think you would benefit?" This way they make the journey on their own, resulting in a much stronger sale.

When they've crossed the bridge:
Listen for indicators of mental possession, meaning they've already begun enjoying in their mind the results of what you can deliver:

For instance, "I think we'd bring all of our reps in house for the training."

Your Action is to solidify the details.

It's here where you CAN assume the sale, because THEY have.

"That sounds like a good idea. Do you have a location in mind?"

This all leads to a much stronger close and an easier one, as a client will feel that lots of benefits, (which is all our sales are), are better than one single one.

You will find many more tips and tools tips like this at our website www.business-solutions-wizard.com