Over my career when reading books, listening to audiotapes or going to a conference every sales guru preaches close, close, and close. Even in movies we are told to (ABC) Always Be Closing. Why is that? Why should the pressure be on the sales person to close the prospect? Why use some hard-pressed tactic to convince the prospect to give you their money. Shouldn’t they want your product? Shouldn’t they want to do business with you?
I mean who wins when a prospect is “closed”. The prospect doesn’t feel good and sales people only feel good for a time. It’s a no-win for both sides of the table. If both parties can’t walk away from the conversation feeling great about the experience then it won’t be a long-lived relationship.
Instead of closing, what if we just had an adult conversation that had a natural outcome of a yes or no. A simple process that the salesperson tries to disqualify the prospect instead of hard closing. Imagine if a salesperson sat across from a prospect with the mindset of simple curiosity. Asking questions to help the prospect uncover what they really want. Really diving into their world and trying to understand how you can help. When sales people are always going for the close then the prospects only get better at hiding. A close is the result of a real conversation that starts with agreed upon terms. It then begins to manifest itself when we find real personal pain and have some tough conversations. Don’t worry so much about the close because the only one who can close a deal is the prospect themselves.
A close is the result of a real conversation that starts with agreed upon terms. It then begins to manifest itself when we find real personal pain and have some tough conversations. Don’t worry so much about the close because the only one who can close a deal is the prospect themselves.
