sales tips & articles

Many salespeople looking to improve cold calling techniques tend to focus on the mechanics of the script or how to qualify but fail to look at whether they are getting a commitment from the prospect.

Telling a prospect what want to do and them agreeing, is not commitment, it’s just them agreeing to your process. Many sales reps seem happy that someone asks or agrees to be sent information and mistakenly think the prospect is interested and fail to get a commitment to follow up or a next step. More often than not it’s because the sales rep doesn’t want to push it or ruin it by asking for clarity and commitment as to the next steps.

A quick tip – if someone has agreed to receive information, they are not interested they just know it’s the quickest way to get a salesperson off the phone!!

Successful salespeople know that to gain commitment from the first call and get buy in this early in the process tells you so much about the quality of the sale and how quickly it will progress. When a lack of commitment is shown, it sounds warning bells that the prospect may not be that strong.

It’s important to understand that commitment is not the same as someone agreeing with you. Agreeing with what you have said or outlined is simply that – agreeing. Many salespeople make the mistake that because a prospect has agreed with them or even acknowledged the process the salesperson has outlined, that this is commitment.

Commitment is defined as “the act of committing, pledging, or engaging oneself” or “a pledge or promise; obligation”

For example:

Salesperson – “I can get the application form over to you by 3pm and if you get back to me by 5pm, I’ll have it installed by Friday”

Prospect - “Ok thanks, that sounds great”

There is no commitment that the prospect will do what you have said, all they have done is agreed with you.

You could instead try this

Salesperson – “I can get the application form over to you by 3pm, can you get it signed and back to me by 5pm so I can have it installed by Friday”

Prospect - “No, I can’t get it back by 5pm but I can get it back to you by 10am tomorrow morning.”

Here are a couple more ways to ensure your getting commitment from your prospects:

Committing to receive a follow up phone call – agree to date and time

“I know you’re extremely busy and I’ve got a crazy week coming up so why don’t we make an appointment to speak again. How does (insert day and time) suit you?”

Committing to an action – they do something for you prior to the next step or you do something for them

“Ok just so we agree, you will speak to your IT manager and get a copy of the specifications and his agreement in principle, so we can begin to develop the solution when we speak next week – agreed?

Committing to the next step

“Now that you have all agreed on the solution, what are the next steps from your side?

Committing to what they will buy, before they buy it

“I think we have everything covered and I’ll arrange for the paperwork we discussed to be sent over. Once we get the paperwork out of the way, how many licences do you think you will start with?
 
BEWARE!   These techniques will mean you have a lower volume of prospects in your funnel – yes less!!! No longer will your pipeline be full of time wasting, slow and low quality prospects. Instead, your pipeline will be filled with high quality, genuine sales opportunities that are well qualified and committed to the process – so you enjoy a higher rate of sales success.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales process improvement, sales coaching and mentoring.

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page

Tweet

Did you come back from the New Year break invigorated and inspired to make 2012 your best year yet?

I love the saying "if nothing changes, then nothing changes" so in order to achieve bigger success this year, changes need to be made, and remember, it's not just the business which might need tweaking, ask yourself what you will do differently to achieve your goals this year.

Use these 5 quick tips and get motivated, get active and start taking the steps toward building your success this year.

Set Yearly, Quarterly and Monthly Goals.

What do you want to achieve each and every month? It can be related to sales figures, client numbers, performance, units sold or even the number of networking events & client meetings you would like to have. Ask your salespeople to write a one page plan and list their goals, what they plan to do differently and how they plan on achieving monthly and quarterly targets.

Regularly review progress

If you aren't already, hold weekly sales meetings to review the activity and performance of your team and ensure they are on track with their plans and sales achievements. 

Have you got a 'consistent' process in place to know where you are each month, identify red flags and ensure your salespeople are accurately estimating their potential? Receiving weekly forecasts and a pipeline from each person in the team provides much needed visibility into the future and allows you to provide feedback and take corrective action, if required.

Review your sales process

How easy is it for customers to buy from you? How long does the process take from first meeting to signed order to implementation and how many people get involved? How many leads or customer orders fell out half way through?

The sales process begins when you start discussing a potential opportunity with a new or existing customer. Review each step to streamline the processes and remove unnecessary steps or delays that may have caused the sale to stall or be lost. 

Knowing you are different just isn't enough. You might have the best product or the best servcie in the world but if no one knows about it, it's worthless. Additionally, staff who deal with customers tend to become bogged down in a world of negativitiy,  never ending issues and complaints and will lose sight of all the benefits and positives that the business has to over 

Analyse customer base and improve customer loyalty

The simplest and cheapest way of increasing sales is to look through your client base. Analyse your customer database to discover  what percentage of sales each customer contributed to the overall revenue. Classify your customers into A, B and C level depending on the spend, percentage or value to the business.

With particular focus on your A and B class customers, how loyal do you think they are? When things start to get tough and your competitors are knocking on their door offering savings, will they pay more to stay with you?

How will you demonstrate or communicate the value you bring, over and above what they are paying for?

Dig deeper and analyse what products or services each of your A and B  customers haven't bought and what else they could get some value or benefit from. 

Arrange to visit your customers and discuss their plans for 2012 and what they hope to achieve. Is there any products or services that you have that will assist them or make it easier to achieve? Use the visit to update them on your plans for 2012, how you plan to 'love them' this year, new products or services being introduced or talk about a product or service that they aren't buying that you feel they might get benefit from.

Lastly, let them know that your plans are to grow in 2012 and you would welcome any referrals or introductions.

Be different and yell it from the rooftops

Knowing you are different just isn't enough. You might have the best product or the best servcie in the world but if no one knows about it, it's worthless. Additionally, staff who deal with customers tend to become bogged down in a world of negativitiy,  never ending issues and complaints and will lose sight of all the benefits and positives that the business has to over.

Hold a staff or sales meeting and review the successes and positives from last year. Have a discussion on the differences between your business and the competition, as a group analyse your strengths and weakness vs their strengths and weaknesses. How can you use your strengths to highlight their weaknesses and how will you combat their strenghth over your weakness?

Keep focussed on the positives and discuss what is possible and what can be achieved when everyone stays positive and focused. This will help staff to forget the negatives of last year and see the potential opportunities of the future.

Assist staff who aren't comfortable talking about themselves by discussing ways these benefits and differences can be introduced into the conversation or how they can be used to overcome objections and negotiate. 

Understand and identify what new business you want

In the end, it all comes down to prospecting. When we know what we want, we know how to find it and prospecting is no different.

Don't leave it up to the salespeople to decide what customers your business should have in 2012. Share the new business strategy to the team and discuss what the business plans to do to support them and make the job of prospecting easier and more successful.

And remember................ if nothing changes, then nothing changes. Here's to great selling in 2012.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here

Upselling your products or services to existing customers is a relatively quick and easy (and lets not forget cheap) way to increase your sales revenue, strengthen customer relationships and increase your value to customers.

Up-selling is when you recommend a better (typically more expensive) product or service to customers and takes place once the sale has been made. The most common example of upselling is McDonalds when they ask you ‘would you like fries with that’ or “would you like to upsize for an extra xx amount?”

It’s easy because the decision to buy has already been made and it’s simple because the customer is right in front of you. When you provide recommendations based on their needs, then you are increasing the value to the customer.

It’s important to be specific, don’t ask the customer ‘is there anything else you need’ because at this point they don’t know what they need. Make suggestions based on the most likely item that the customer will want or need and why you think they will need it. Only recommend what the customer genuinely needs, not just what you want to sell them; otherwise you will come across as a pushy salesperson and nobody likes a pushy salesperson.
Here is a great example that I witnessed over the weekend -

I was in a book shop when a lady was at the counter making a purchase. After the purchase the shop assistant asked the customer “have you read ‘x’ book, it’s amazing and if you like what you have now, you will really love this one. The customer replied “no” so the sales assistant went over and picked out the book. After about a minute of flicking through some pages, the customer bought the book.

Simple right?

One of the biggest mistakes people make in cross-selling or upselling is assuming that the customer won’t want it or can’t afford it. This is simply based on fear. Let your customers make that decision and you will be amazed at the results.

Remember; if don’t ask, you don’t get. Here are a couple more examples:

• If you provide a service you might like to suggest a 3 or 12 month option rather than a one off transaction. You might also like to recommend purchasing relevant templates or e-books.
• If you provide IT or computer services you might like to suggest an additional back-up service or ongoing maintenance contracts rather than a reactive ad-hoc break/fix service.
• If you sell products such as hair or beauty, recommend a moisturiser or shampoo product that will enhance the treatment they have just had. 
• If you provide training you could recommend 1-on-1 follow-up sessions to ensure the new skills are being used and to address any questions or challenges that have arisen.
• Providing free samples is another great way of getting customers to try something new.

Use upcoming promotions or incentives as an excuse to recontact customers, for example “Hi ….. I just thought I would give you a quick call and let you know that the product you normally buy is on sale at the moment so if you would like to buy some now, you will save x amount”

Spend ten minutes and list out your main products or services - what add-on products could you sell after a customer has made a purchase?

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and virtual sales management.

 

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here

Product bundling is combining two or more complimentary products or services together that creates differentiation and offers greater value to the customer. The key to packaging your products and services is to ensure that the package price is less than buying all the individual items separately.

A bundle of products is sometimes referred to as a package deal and a well known example of this is the fast food industry 'meal deal' where you can buy burger, fries and coke for a cheaper price than purchasing all items individually.

Product bundling has many advantages apart from selling more products such as the cost savings and efficiencies in your business by selling multiple products in the one transaction, increased perceived value and customer loyalty.

Providing a bundled solution increases the perceived value of your offer and creates customer loyalty because the need to go elsewhere for other products is reduced.

Typically a bundled offer will include a product or service that has a high value but doesn’t get repeat purchased that often. When you bundle this with products or services that need to be repeat purchased you are turning what would have been a one-off purchase (or even a one-off customer) into repeat business.

Additionally, when you add-on complimentary products or services the price reduction is seen to be in the add-on products which means you can maintain the pricing point of the main product. For example:

• Selling computers and offering a start-up ‘start-up’ package that includes software, training and installation. Add-on items that are relatively cheap to provide but greatly increase the value of the offer.

• A Consultant offering their services for a fixed fee per month (say $1000) and includes an additional service for a total fee of ($1500). To get both of these services the normal price might be $1800 per month.
• Offering free delivery for orders over a certain amount
• Selling beauty products and bundling a cleanser, moisturiser and an eye cream.
• A travel agent selling a holiday offering a reduction on travel insurance for all bookings over a certain amount.
• Offering web design with an additional offer of HTML newsletters and ongoing monthly email subscription for a reduced price
• A lawn mowing service that offers tree trimming or rubbish removal for a small additional fee

Think about your business; what high value products can be paired with a lower value product to increase the value of the sale but also increase the value offered to the client.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and virtual sales management.
 

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here

When dealing with clients, a common situation that I come across is lack of activity and lack of accountability in sales teams which leads to lack of sales. The business is owner is stressed and frustrated not just because the sales aren’t coming in but because they simply don’t have the time to spend with salespeople or effectively manage the team. In some cases the business owner simply doesn’t know what to do.

• Does any of this sound familiar to you?
• I don't know what my salespeople do every day
• They keep telling me the same thing every week but no sales are being closed
• My sales people are meeting their weekly or monthly sales targets
• There is no new business coming in, it's all from existing clients?
• No one seems to picking up the phone and cold calling
• I'm not sure what to say to them or how to manage them
• I don't have time, nor want to manage them
• Our sales meetings seem to drag on forever

If you’re experiencing any of the above, we can help you to uncover why your salespeople aren't selling and what needs to be done to improve the situation. We call this "Good Cop, Bad Cop" Sales Management.

• We create the change
• We save you time
• We have the tough conversations, and
• We are the bad cop

So you get to be the good cop and keep a positive relationship with the staff.

If you’re not in a position to utilize a service like ours, here are some tips that might help you:

Ensure that each salesperson clearly understands what is expected of them each and every week in terms of new business activity (cold calls/meetings), customer visits, quotes generated or sales made.
Hold weekly sales meetings and discuss what meetings/calls were made the previous week, what is planned for this week and what sales can be expected.
Bring up and discuss objections or stalling that the sales team may be experiencing with customers and brainstorm solutions as a team.
Provide coaching and mentoring support in any form and suggest that you visit customer or prospects together.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and virtual sales management.


 

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here

This week's blog post is from my very good friend and business mentor, Andrew Griffiths. If your not familiar with Andrew or his books, he is Australia's Number 1 Business Author with releases such as "101 Ways to Market your Business, "The Me Myth"and "Bulletproof Your Business".

Each week he writes a business bullet (well worth signing up to) on a topic relating to small business; this week it was all about sales and well worth sharing.

1. Being a great sales person starts when you get out of bed in the morning.

People who are really good at selling normally have a very positive outlook on life. They are energetic and enthusiastic about what they do, sincere with their customers, interested in their industry and passionate about their products. Every morning I take a few minutes to think about my day ahead. I visualise how it will look, the positive encounters I will have, the things I will sell and the great things I will get to do. Most of the time, this becomes the reality. How you think about your day is more than likely how it will turn out. So I suggest that you make it a fantastic day and it will be. A great attitude is always rewarded.

2. Take a few minutes extra to look the part.

I believe very strongly that looking the part is just as important as playing the part. When it comes to any kind of retail it is really important to take the time and make the effort to be well groomed and have clean and well-ironed clothes. Right or wrong, people form an opinion about you in the first seven seconds of any interaction. If you look smart it shows that you respect yourself and the people you will be selling to.

3. Have a big, warm and welcoming “hello”.

Many people are really terrible at saying a simple “hello” to their customers. My advice is very simple. Stop whatever you are doing, stand up straight, put a huge smile on your face and give them a big, warm hello. Most importantly look the person in the eye when you are smiling. We are rarely greeted so well in any store and if you do this, your warm smile will not only be remembered it will be sought after. Your customers will tell everyone they know just how nice you are. An added bonus to you is that it is really hard to feel anything but fantastic about life when you are spending your day connecting with people simply by smiling.

4. Stop what you are doing and focus on the person in front of you.

There is nothing worse than having a distracted sales person try and half sell something to you. Their focus is elsewhere, they mumble answers and they offer little help or advice. Whenever you are with a customer give them you full and undivided attention. Focus on them, listen to them, show them what they are looking for and make sure you have given them what they want. It really is simple yet less than ten percent of sales people do this. If you want to shine in the world of sales this is a great place to start.

5. Never judge a book by its cover.

It is surprising just how much we all do this. I have been caught out a number of times and now I make a point of treating everyone exactly the same. Who knows how much money someone has or doesn’t have? You certainly can’t tell that by what someone is wearing even if you think you can. Treat every single customer as your most important customer right then and there and I guarantee you will sell a lot more of anything to anyone.

6. Make someone’s day.

It is surprisingly simple to really make someone’s day. We all seem to be so focused inwards, thinking through the various issues and challenges that fill our day that often we are shocked and pleasantly surprised when someone makes our day by saying something nice. I suggest that you become really good at giving sincere compliments to people. At first you might be a bit uncomfortable with it but believe me, it will grow on you and it will start to feel fabulous in a very short amount of time. Tell someone if their hair looks nice, or their necklace is pretty, or if they have great taste in books, or if they have a great smile. The only catch is that you have to be sincere in your compliment otherwise it just doesn’t work. Make it your mission to make as many people’s day as you possible can.

7. Have some recommendations ready in each section.

Being a great sales person means being able to make a recommendation on the products you are selling. After all if you can’t do this, you are really nothing more than a money collector. Be clear about what products or services you do actually recommend and you have to believe in them 100%. If you don’t it shows. And always give a recommendation. If you do, you will be amazed at how many more sales you actually get.

8. Use every interaction to let the customer know more about your business.

All this takes is a few words at the end of a sale, or during your conversation, to let your customer know that you are open “seven days a week” or that you will be open on the public holiday coming up, or that there is a sale due to start in a few days and so on. Use every interaction as a wonderful opportunity to educate your customer about your business. Remember it is our job to tell our customers what we can do for them, it isn’t their job to find out.

9. Make it really easy for your customers to buy from you.

If you want to attract more customers and keep them coming back more often, develop a can do attitude that promotes making selling easy. What could be improved or streamlined to speed things up and to keep people moving? Is your sales area cluttered? Do you struggle to find a pen for people to sign credit card slips? Look for any way possible to make it easy for your customers to buy from you and they will.

10. People want to hear their own name.

We all like the sound of our own name and in the retail environment I suggest you try and use your customers name whenever you can. Make the effort to remember your regular customers names, they will appreciate it a lot, more than you realise. Think about how it makes you feel when you go into your favourite store or coffee shop and they know your name. When handing back a credit card thank the person using their formal name, Mr Smith or Ms Smith. They will notice it and remember that you did it. Even if the name is hard to pronounce, that in its own right a great talking point.

Next week I will give you another 10 top sales tips. If you can’t wait till next week visit a friend of mines website – Karen Andrews from Shine Sales – she has a pile of excellent sales tips and a sensational newsletter that is all about selling.

Read more of Andrew's Business Bullets by clicking here

If you are just starting out in business or in sales here are some quick tips and tricks you can use to get you in sales mindset, develop a sales language and start selling !

1. Be yourself
2. Have you ever bought anything of anyone you didn’t like?
3. People buy people, not companies so relax and just be yourself
4. Having a good Introduction/Elevator Story ready
5. This will help to give you confidence whenever you go into networking or face to face business meetings. Your introduction should only be around one minute and include who you are, what you do, your experience (if relevant) and what is the benefit of doing business you.
6. Ask questions, ask questions, ask questions
7. It’s the only way you will know what your clients really want. When you know what they want you will know how you can help them.
8. Think about the benefits of your business and its products and services. What makes then unique or superior to your competitors?
9. Why do I need to buy your products or services? How will they make a difference to me?
10. Talk more about the benefits or the ‘why’ elements rather than the features so your clients understand why they would want them.
11. Know where to find new clients
12. Get out there and find your potential clients, don’t wait for them to come to you. Networking is a good place to find clients and there are hundreds of groups around. Try BNI, Chamber of Commerce, and Women’s Network Australia, Australian Institute of Management or type ‘business networking’ into Google.
13. Sales takes time
14. Increasing your confidence in sales and the ability to win new clients takes time, it isn’t easy for everyone, so give yourself some time. Allocate some time each week to focus on building new sales.
15. Follow Up
16. One of the hardest elements of building a business is finding a constant stream of new clients. You have already done the hard work through networking, advertising or marketing so don’t waste it. Make that follow up call now! The biggest complaint that people have in relation to sales is that no one ever followed them up.

 

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here

I've spoken in the past about the Sales Pipeline and how to use it to increase sales but now it’s time to review it again to see just what the next couple of months will look like.

A sales pipeline is simply a forecast that you or your salespeople prepare monthly which lists the customers that are likely to buy in a given time frame, the value of the sale and when it is likely to close. It is an essential tool for business owners and sales managers to identify where you are and where you need to be in order to meet budget.

Even if the forecast is well below where you need it to be, at least you are aware of it and can take steps to improve it and stay on track. Don't wait until the 2nd or 3rd week of the month when you realise that sales are slow to come in and you need more because it's usually too late.

Typically, I usually ask for a forecast at the beginning of the month and then again on the 15th of the month to see how we are tracking.

The important thing to remember is to use a 'weighting'. You may $500,000 in your pipeline but it's very unlikely that you will be successful in winning 100% of them so the forecast will be inaccurate. A weighting is simply a % that you apply terms of the likelihood of winning the sale. Here is an example of how to calculate:



Using this example, the salesperson needs to add more sales into their pipeline to ensure they reach their sales target of $100,000.

As a guide to the Probability you could use

Initial Communication - 10%
First Meeting/Presentation - 20%
Proposal Given - 60%
Negotiation/Verbal Commitment - 80%
Closed - 100%

Most CRM/Database packages (I use ACT or Salesforce.com) include Sales Pipeline management but it can be as simply as listing them on an Excel spreadsheet. Here are a couple of examples from Excel to get you started

Solutions Sales:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-s/templates/TC011457101033.aspx

Product Sales:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC011457181033.aspx

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.

13
tweets

Did you know that the majority of sales leads and enquiries do not get followed up more than once (which could be why your business has a low conversion rate*)?

To improve your sales or that of your sales team, develop a system to regularly check where each one is at and when they were last contacted. If you hold sales meetings, doing it at the beginning or end of each month is perfect.

Here are some statistics that I'm sure you will find most interesting:

• 48% of sales people never follow-up with a prospect
• 25% of sales people make a second contact and stop
• 12% of sales people only make 3 contacts and stop
• Only 10% of sales people make more than 3 contacts
• 2% of sales are made on the first contact
• 3% of sales are made on the second contact
• 5% of sales are made on the third contact
• 10% of sales are made on the fourth contact
• 80% of sales are made on the fifth to twelfth contact

To ramp up some sales in the next couple of months, go through all the leads you have received over the last 3-6 months and either you or your sales people pick up the phone and call them. You will be surprised how many people haven't done anything, simply because no one has bothered to follow up and they have simply been too busy to do anything about it.


* Your sales conversion rate is how many enquiries you receive vs. how many you convert into customers over a specified time frame. To calculate your sales conversion rate follow this simple formula

Total No. of Sales/ Total No. of Enquiries x 100 = Sales Conversion

e.g. 80 sales / 120 enquiries x 100 = 66.67%

For for every 3 enquiries you will be successful in 1 sale, so you need to have 3 times the amount of your budget (or number of required sales) in your pipeline at any one point in time.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach, Strategist and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.
 

If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here

For many people just the thought of ‘asking for the business‘ or closing the sale, brings about paralyzing fear of rejection and feelings of being too pushy. So what happens? It gets avoided at all costs and that doesn’t help anyone.

The problem with letting fear get in the way is that sales drag on way to long and they often get lost as a result of not following-up. Remember if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Interestingly, it’s very rare for someone to be annoyed with you for following-up, if they have been meaning to call you, you’re doing them a favour by saving them time. If they haven’t made a decision, that’s OK just ask them when you should call them back (so your not bothering them unnecessarily in between).

Closing is many things, it’s not just about winning the sale; closing is moving the sale through the process and getting agreement at each step, for example:

• Agreeing to a next appointment
• Agreeing to prepare a proposal
• Agreeing to a demonstration 
• Agreeing to the next step 
• Agreeing to get started

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, the more work you do in the early stages of the sale to understand their ‘needs’ and their buying reasons, the easier and quicker the sale will be. Here are some tips and techniques that you can follow to make the process easier

1. Spend more time asking questions that uncover needs and any problems, challenges or frustrations they may be experiencing. Businesses pay money to fulfil needs and solve problems. If you have a clear understanding of the problem or the need you can match your solution to it.

2. If you can’t uncover any of these reasons, I would suggest there is no reason for your prospect to buy it and the sale will be difficult to close.

3. Ensure that both you and your prospect understand and agree on their needs or problems and the value they will receive when you help them solve it.

4. When your prospects clearly understand “whats in it for them” it’s makes their decision easier and quite often they want to buy from you.

5. Tailor your presentation around their needs and “whats in it for them” Great presentations communicate this clearly and gets your prospect into ‘buying mode’

6. Rcognize when people are ready to buy. They might indicate or show they're ready by asking questions about the product or the buying process: "How long will it take for delivery?", "How does that work?" or "Where to from here?". Other signs include positive body language and comments such as "we could use it like this?" or "that’s a good idea."

When it comes time to ask for the business there are 3 different techniques you can use. I find the ‘assumptive’ close tends to work best for me but it’s important to find a technique that works for you.

The direct close
This is the most direct because you actually ask for the order. For example “should we get the product ready for tomorrow?” or “Would you like to place an order”

The indirect close
This is where you summarise and re-state the benefits and then ask for a decision. For example “having spoken to some of our clients and heard about the benefits they have been enjoying as a result of our service, are you ready to place an order”

The assumptive close
This is the one I use all the time and it assumes that the customer has made the decision to buy your product. Instead of asking them for an order, you ask them to complete the first step to get the service started or goods delivered. For example “if you need to have delivery next week, I need the order from you no later than tomorrow” or “when would you like us to get started”

If the client is unwilling to move ahead, perhaps you haven’t addressed all of their concerns or perhaps they have a misunderstanding about your product or service or fail to see the benefits of what you offer.

If your stuck read my article on “handling objections” or “what do to when the sale stalls” to get some helpful hints.

This sales article was written by Karen Andrews, Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach, Strategist and Sales expert that works with businesses to increase their sales through strategy development, sales coaching and mentoring.


If you liked this article, subscribe to our monthly Sales Success ezine. You will learn...

* Easy ways to increase your sales and grow your business
* Simple strategies to sell yourself, even if your not in sales
* How to generate sales easier and quicker!

Enter your details at the top of the page or click here

* quotes were supplied by K. Rosen at allbusiness.com