Let’s face it: Asking for the business can be terrifying for many sales reps. But here’s a game-changing approach: Start closing early…
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So many sales reps I meet have a fear of asking for the business.
They just clam up and freeze when they have to ask for the close.
And you know, I have a fear of starving.
So maybe that’s just me.
But all joking aside, we need to get comfortable asking for the business.
Now, I’ll admit, I came by it honestly, because my very first sales jobs were going door to door selling chocolate or wrapping paper or spices, poinsettias even in order to go to band camp or soccer camp or whatever camp that I was going to that summer because my dad refused to take that stuff to work, I had to sell it myself.
And door to door sales is all about knock-knock-knock want to buy some chocolate, right? So at an early age, I got comfortable asking for the sale.
But I will admit, in a business to business environment it’s different.
And of course it’s nerve wracking because you do feel like your ego and your self-worth is on the line.
So here’s what I started to do early on in my career that has paid off in spades.
I started to take the fear and the threat and the largesse out of closing by introducing it early in the sales cycle.
Early on in my qualification, I started asking the customer to tell me when they want to go live, or when they needed to implement, or when they needed to have the product on hand in sight, or when the service needed to be finished.
And then we would work backwards.
They give you a date of October 1st.
You know, we would work backwards to find out when a contract had to be in place in order for that to happen.
What needed to happen, you know, to get that contract ready.
How the training would have to go.
What decision points they had, who else you had to meet with, and basically build a closing project plan.
Then what would happen is it would take all of that fear and concern and anticipation out of the close, because the client and I would be working together towards those dates that they set, not me.
I would be able to hold them accountable to make sure, hey, is that date slipping? Are we accelerating it? Are we on track? Are you comfortable with this process? And those kinds of check-in questions became trial closes.
Once all those steps were completed, it became easy then to ask the customer what they’d like to do next.
And it was the customer’s decision to move forward.
So the language that I suggest you use early on in the sales cycle starts the process with something like this: Hey, planning for success, and I know that we’re nowhere near you making a decision to do business with us or not, but if we were to plan for success and ensure that we hit your timeline, let’s talk about what has to happen between when you want to go live and where we are today.
And then build that closing process plan.
You can read more about this in Nonstop Sales Boom or on my website by typing in “closing map” or “closing plan”, and you’ll see articles and podcasts and the book chapters to read from the book.
I look forward to staying in touch.
Don’t forget to check out: The Easiest Way to Get Referrals!