Closing rates are ALWAYS the “topic of the day” during workshops, coaching calls and strategy sessions. What is yours? Is that high or low compared to average? What would you expect it to be? How can we make it better? Is my closing rate higher or lower for lost deals vs. won deals?
Questions abound, here’s where you should start.
- Know your closing ratio. Simply, how many opportunities do you open vs. how many do you win? To obtain the most accurate picture, you need to measure your closing ratio based on all opportunities you open, from the first stage in your pipeline. Too many sellers include only those opportunities in the proposal phase, which artificially inflates your closing ratio and gives you a false sense of success in the market.
- Make sure you are honestly marking deals closed as lost when they are lost. You will skew your ratios wildly if you never “close/lost” an opportunity. Far too many sellers I see simply move a lost deal back to “phase 1” in their pipeline, and never mark it as closed. If you are using a CRM, this drives the automated close ratio calculation up unreasonably because you are never registering a loss in the system. Be honest with yourself. Sometimes, the buyer says no.
- Compare your results. Compare your results with other members of your team, your mentors, and your industry. This will help you determine if you are high or low compared to your peers, and help you develop a plan to improve. Start with comparing yourself to the industry average using this handy tool from Hubspot. After that, compare yourself to the best people in your industry and your company. At the end of the day, you want to be above average don’t you?
Implement your improvement plan. If you are lower than average, figure out what you need to do to improve your closing and implement it. For example:
- Are you asking for the sale?
- Do you need help handling objections?
- Are you sending proposals too early?
- Are you taking to the right decision maker? If you are above average, figure out how to leverage your success.
- Leverage success. If you are above average, document what you are doing right and ensure you do those things each and every time. Make your success conscious.[bctt tweet=”Once you know why you are winning more deals than average, you can replicate for more success.” username=”EngageColleen”]
Implement your improvement plan. I would love to hear from you. What is your closing rate? How does it compare? And what will you do about it?
Colleen