There is no such thing as a bad salesperson. We know that some of you have read that statement and immediately rejected it on the grounds that you're a good salesperson, but bear with us here. We're not saying that some people aren't better at sales than others, but what defines a "good" salesperson and makes them different from a "bad" salesperson is the way they close deals. So long as you're capable of opening and maintaining a conversation with a stranger, you're capable of succeeding in sales. If the numbers you need aren't coming in for you, it's probably your closing tactics that are causing the problem.
Don’t get us wrong on this. We’re not implying that you or anybody else should watch “The Wolf of Wall Street” or “Glengarry Glen Ross” and learn any of the unscrupulous sales tactics that are on show in either of those films. Lying to your customers isn't a great way to write business that sticks or attract repeat or referral orders. You don't need to lie or misrepresent what it is that you're selling in any way. You just need to close out your pitch in a way that's confident and forthright, leaving your customer only two choices. They either buy from you, or they walk away and free up your time to deal with somebody else.
If indecisive or non-committal customers are the bane of your life, try adopting the techniques we’re about to list below. You should begin to see a difference very quickly in your selling stats.
5 Top Sales Closer Techniques That Really Work
The “One To Ten” Close
Wait until you've finished pitching your product, and for the client to finish reading the necessary paperwork if applicable. If, at that point, you're not getting positive buying signals from them, ask them to rate how likely they are to buy what you're trying to sell them on a scale of one to ten. If it's five or less, give up on them. They're not going to buy. If they're above a five, you have something to work with. Ask them what's holding them back from giving you a full ten. That should give you a complete list of objections to overcome. When you have that, ask them to reconfirm that if you can deal with those issues, they'll be ten out of ten likely to buy. They have no excuse not to buy from you at that point, and so they're far more likely to do so.
The “All Bases Covered” Close
The key to a successful sale is finding out every possible detail about what your client is looking for. Don't attempt to go into your pitch too early. Listen to them, and get a bullet point list of what they're looking for from your product. Don't just focus on objectives - consider procedural issues, too. Help your customer to build a picture of what their ideal product looks and feels like. When you have that, you can start to make connections between what you're selling and what they're looking to buy. Make sure you have one point for every point they raised. That way, when you're summarizing, you can list back to them everything they wanted from you and explain how your product fulfills that need. If you have all of their bases covered, they have nowhere left to go in terms of objectives.
The “Ben Franklin”
Ben Franklin was one of the most remarkable men who ever lived. He was an exceptionally skilled politician, a gifted and imaginative inventor, and an outstanding businessman. He was a polymath, and he doesn't get enough credit for it. Whenever he had a big decision to make in his life, he would write down all of the pros and cons of the action he was thinking about taking and reach a logical conclusion based on that list. Generations of salespeople have refined this logic-based approach into the so-called Ben Franklin close. If you’re dealing with a non-committal customer, have them write down all of the pros and cons they associate with buying your product. It’s best if they can do this immediately, but if not, you can still book a callback. They should see that the pros outweigh the cons - and finding out the cons gives you the opportunity to handle and overcome objections.
The High Stakes Gamble
Welcome to the world of reverse psychology. How do you feel about gambling? Are you the sort of person who plays poker, or do you spend any time at online slots websites such as Kong Casino? If so, this might appeal to you - especially if you're an online slots player. You'll know from playing slots that you'll frequently lose money by taking the exact same action in the exact same pattern that's won you money in the past. You have no control over that, because online slots create random outcomes. Fortunately, human beings are much more predictable. If your customer is still on the fence and there's no obvious reason why, imply that you might walk away from them. Thank them for their time, but tell them that you can see they're still struggling with the decision, and you don't want to put pressure on them. Then tell them to call you back if they want to proceed in the future. If they're not interested, they'll accept this. If they are, you might suddenly find that they're much keener to go ahead than they were before you threatened to cut off contact. Some people need that little nudge.
Closing By Assumption
This is the oldest and most successful trick in the book, and it's not really a trick. Conduct your whole pitch on the assumption that your customer is going to buy from you. Proceed down every step of the sales process, and only stop or hold back if your customer steps in to object. This is known as the assumptive close, and it works far more often than people suspect it might. When you give a customer the opportunity to object, the chances are that they'll find something to object to. If you push on and finish the job you started, it's likely they'll go along with it. Respect the fact that your customer is an intelligent person and has free will. If they want to stop you, they can do so at any time. If they're not doing so, it's because they're engaged with both you and the product. The occasional downside of this is that you might see an increase in cancellations from people who were too shy to tell you "no" when you were speaking to them in person - but if your sales figures are up overall, that shouldn't matter too much.
Always Be Closing Your Sales
Note how, in every single one of these examples, you're the person in charge of the closing process. Sales fall through when the person making the sales doesn't attempt to handle the customer's objections or doesn't know how to move a conversation on toward buying. Change that one thing by using the techniques we've described above, and you should be onto a winner.
Remember your ABCs: Always be closing! Remember that coffee is for closers, so close the deal!
