If you could close your deals three times faster, you could potentially sell three times as much. Or spend more time down the pub. The choice is yours. So how do we close deals faster?
Here we have four opportunities for you to close deals faster:
- Building the business case. When someone buys from you, they need to get approval and this is done by creating a business case, usually focused on the return on investment. You can leave the prospect to do that alone, or you can accelerate the process by doing it with them. Given that many of your customers will be doing this, you can bring the perspective of having done this with other prospects before. That experience in terms of how you solution has worked in other businesses, will help the business case to be more realistic and credible.
- Choosing the best option. Am I serious? Absolutely. In order to make the best decision, the prospect needs to understand all of the offerings and score them against their purchasing criteria. You will already have done an excellent job in establishing their purchasing criteria, so use this along with your excellent knowledge of the competitors to help them make the correct decision. It’s a great exercise to clarify their criteria and their perception of your offering, and you can iron out any misunderstandings.
- Pre-empt their concerns. Before they sign a deal, a number of concerns will manifest in the buying organisation. Because of your experience of selling this solution before, you can help the prospect to anticipate these concerns and head them off in advance, before the concerns have a chance to slow down the deal.
- Negotiation. Most buyers negotiate, and time is wasted going back and forth with different offers. Plan your negotiation in advance and create multiple offers for different scenarios that may evolve, so you can respond more quickly when they do. Plan in advance your ‘Gives and Gets’ so you know what you’re prepared to exchange for what return. When they ask for a concession (a give) you can immediately come back with a request for something in return (a get) and close the deal more quickly.
Conclusion. You can take an active or passive role in facilitating your prospects through the prospect’s purchasing process. You can use the above sales techniques to actively help your customer through their purchasing process, which helps you to land the deal and close deals faster.
Article by: Alistair McQuade
