Women's Network Australia Blog

Sales Tools: Great tips on closing the sale

For many people just the thought of ‘asking for the business’ or closing the sale brings about paralysing 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 too 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 you’re 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. 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.
2. 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.
3. When your prospects clearly understand ‘what’s in it for them’ it makes their decision easier and quite often they want to buy from you. Tailor your presentation around their needs and ‘what’s in it for them’. Great presentations communicate this clearly and gets your prospect into ‘buying mode’.
4. Recognise 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. Here is a list of closing techniques you might like to try:

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 you’re still stuck, have a read through my articles on “handling objections” or “what do to when the sale stalls”.

Contributed by Karen Andrews.   Karen Andrews is the Director of Shine Sales Solutions, a Sydney based Sales Coach and Sales expert, that works with businesses to increase sales and increase sales confidence through strategy development, sales management, sales coaching and mentoring. Since its inception in 2003 Shine Sales Solutions has been assisting businesses to manage and motivate their sales staff to achieve success and increase profits. P: 02 9437 6500, E: kandrews@shinesales.com.au Twitter: karenandrews.

Karen Andrews has written 8 article(s) for us.

Visit http://www.shinesales.com.au

And Then There Were Lists …

The now well recognised Twitter Lists feature is a great way to organise the people you’re following on Twitter, or find new people. In reality these lists are actually Twitter’s version of a ‘groups’ feature, offering an easy way to cluster other users on Twitter into groups allowing you to get an overarching view of what they are up to without having to filter through your vast followers list or visiting each and every profile.

Lists are not just static listings of users, rather compilations of feeds from a specified set of users that you choose. What this means is that you can create a live feeding snapshot of the tweets from your users by viewing a specific list’s page. Lists are a great way of organising the people you are following into topic based groups. Lists also have the great benefit of allowing you to include people who you are not following! Read the rest…

Is it time you Facebooked your business?

If you thought Facebook was just for keeping in touch with friends and family, think again. It can be a great way of building an online community, or simply reaching another audience online.  With a Facebook Page you create a public profile that helps you to share your business and products with Facebook users. You ask people to become a ‘fan’ and you can engage with them by posting videos, photos, company news, promotions and discounts and by starting discussion groups.  Read the rest…

Database Management: Does Size Matter?

When I’m talking to people who are considering starting up a regular e-newsletter, I often ask “how many contacts do you have in your client database?” [I ask this question as it relates to the pricing of my services]. The response is very often almost an apology such as “oh, I only have a few hundred, but I intend to increase it”.

I would like to say here and now, there is no shame in a list of ‘only a few hundred’, and the size of your list should not delay you in starting your regular email newsletter.

An email campaign to the 200 person list, where every one of those 200 people personally know the business owner and the services they are providing, could deliver a much better response rate than the same campaign to a list of 2,000 people who subscribed to a list ‘accidentally’ or ‘by default’ and have never used the business’s services. Read the rest…

Do We Really Have To PUSH Women On To Boards?

When I first arrived in this country several years ago, I struggled to find anyone who would hire me in a senior management capacity. I found this puzzling since I have two degrees, two professional designations and very solid work experience with recognised international brands. The MAIN reason I was given by organisations was that I “lacked Australian work experience”. I found this reason to be puzzling. 

We live in a world where there are few global trading boundaries. Every business is susceptible to the threat of losing customers to internet-based businesses (which in many cases sell the same products for less) and we need to think outside of the square to compete and maintain market share. Read the rest…

Business Know How: The Social Media Mix

If someone says spider and you reach for your thongs…  If you consider web presence to be something you send to a friend via email for their birthday…   If you still think tweeting is a sound that birds make…  Then you need to get online more! With so many new social media sites (Facebook), ecommerce platforms (eBay), media (Source Bottle) and article banks (Free Sticky) popping up, navigating the World Wide Web is becoming a mammoth task for business owners everywhere! Read the rest…

Why 75% of Women Struggle to Succeed in Business

The biggest barrier to their success is that they often try to ‘do’ everything themselves, which is impossible. Whilst they are ‘doing’ the day-day basics, there’s no time to work ‘on’ the business. There’s no time to look after their no. 1 asset…themselves.

When you look at the list of what women ‘do’ in their businesses it looks something like this: Read the rest…

The Difference Between a Feature and Benefit and Why It Matters!

 I saw an advertisement a while back that promoted the benefits of getting your doona dry cleaned. In fact, I liked the advertisement so much that I actually took my doona in to get dry cleaned, only to find out that the cost to dry clean it was almost double the price of what I paid for it. Needless to say, I didn’t proceed.

But here’s what was interesting.  The advertisement stopped me in my tracks and compelled me to say “Gee, I need this service” when, three seconds before, I had never even heard of it.  It also highlighted a previously unknown ‘problem’ that I had (an unclean doona) which compelled me to take action and to visit the store. Read the rest…

Marketing Plans That Work: Remove the jargon and get results

When you are writing a marketing plan, nuke the big words and don’t use three sentences to say what you could in one. If you want your business to gather pace rather than dust, it’s vital that any marketing plan you write is easy to understand, effective for the business and easily implemented. Sounds like a no brainer, but the majority of plans – all written with the best intentions of course – end up wallowing in the bottom of filing cabinets or being used a year later as scrap paper.

A practical marketing plan can save your company from going backwards, and in the scenarios we like to see, propel it into a whole new realm. Here’s some tips regarding the best way to go about preparing a plan that you’ll want to see through and implement! Read the rest…

Sales Objections – Clean them up and close the deal

Sales objections are simply reasons or concerns that a prospective client has as to why they won’t make a decision when you want them to. You will hear statements such as:

• Sounds good, let me think about it.
• It sounds great but not just yet.
• We do this already.
• We don’t get any complaints.
• Our reps do that.
• I’m really busy at the moment and just haven’t had a chance to look at it.
• I need to speak to my partner before I can make a decision.
• I’ll have a look at it and get back to you in a couple of weeks.

There are many reasons for objections and they are not always negative. Objections are a great indicator and qualifier as to whether you will get the sale – depending on how you handle them at the time. Read the rest…