For today’s Sales Insight blog post, I would like to talk to you about the secret to closing the sale.
From my experience, sales people can often be trained in closing techniques such as the assumptive close, the alternative close, or even the just suppose close but I’m often approached by sales managers wanting me to help their sales people close the sale more effectively. Often my advice is simply that the inability to close the sale is not the problem, it’s merely a symptom of the real issue.
The downfalls of your existing closing techniques
Focusing on the aforementioned closing techniques doesn’t work anywhere near as well as having a robust sales process.
Many customers are aware of closing techniques and can see them a mile off. Not only that, they can feel slightly manipulative and “cheesy”.
From the sales person’s side, they can create undue pressure on themselves gearing up for the big close at the end of the sales conversation.
Have a robust sales process in place to close the deal more effectively
All that pressure can be lifted by investing more time at the start of the sales process to do some research and ask questions to ensure you fully understand the customer’s needs.
Based on this understanding, if you are then able to demonstrate the differential value that your solution brings to the customer in a compelling way, closing the sale is a natural conclusion.
Without a good sales process, no closing technique will get you results
If your solution doesn’t bring value to the customer, or you haven’t managed to articulate it well, then it will be no surprise when your closing techniques fail to yield results.
Personally I would rather admit I had failed in demonstrating value to a customer and leave them with a good impression rather than force a cheesy closing technique.
There are no shortcuts to closing the sale, however a little more effort throughout the early sales process will save a lot of time towards the end.
Don’t forget, if you would like any information on this or on any other area of sales please contact me on steve@salestrong.co.uk.
Enjoyed this post? Take a look at our essential steps to prospecting here.
