The Close
Focus on the close. Your conversion rates from genuinely interested parties to closed customer is low. There are a few keys areas that we can focus on improving to help.
The Selling Mindset
The most important part of being in sales, is the attitude that you bring about the work you are doing. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, neither will your customers.
Why This Model? Customers can read you, so you need the right mindset to close.
Building Good Customer Relationships
People buy from people they like, plain and simple. If your customer doesn’t like you, they won’t buy. There are some simple things you can do to help make a good impression and build a solid relationship with your customers.
Why This Model? Closing is all about the emotional relationship and likeability.
The Buying Group
In a complicated sale, there is often more than just one person involved. This group of individuals is called “the buying group”. Knowing who they key players are and what matters to each of them, will help you customize your sales approach.
Why This Model? There are many different people in the buying group that you need to close.
The Sales’ Funnel
The purpose of the sales funnel is to drive sales through it. By understanding your sales funnel and analyzing it, you are able to refine your sales strategy.
Why This Model? Closing is a critical part of the sales funnel.
Gauging Interest
Some customers will come straight out and tell you whether or not they are interested. But this is not common and you need to be able to gauge interest so that you know when to try to close a sale.
Why This Model? You need to gauge interest prior to trying to close someone.
Control Your Message
When possible, always control your own message. This means that you should be doing this yourself, or you should be the one dictating what should be said. How?
Why This Model? You need to control your message so that the decision makers can hear what you need them to hear.
Closing
Closing is more than just using a line. The customer has to believe that you, the sales person, are friendly, knowledgeable, and confident. Once you have built this type of relationship, test if you can close.
Why This Model? Closing tactics that work are different for everyone.
Reducing Risk
Customers will only buy once they feel 100% comfortable in your solution. This means that they can’t feel that anything is risky. How do you ensure that they’re comfortable?
Why This Model? The more risk that a customer perceives, the less likely that you can close them.
Most Common Objections
The most important thing about objections? Deal with them early on rather than later. There is no point in belabouring something if the objection is a deal breaker and cannot be cleared up.
Why This Model? Objections are another barrier to closing.
Know When To Walk Away
There are plenty of fish in the sea. And not every fish will be the right fish for you. There comes a tipping point where too much time, energy, emotion, money, connections, and favours.
Why This Model? Some customers you don’t want to close or you aren’t able to close.
Competition
You need to know details about your suppliers, but you need to learn everything you can about your competitors. Learn how to do this.
Why This Model? Your competition is a barrier to closure, or it can be helpful.
Sales Cycle Length
The more quickly you can close a prospect, the more time you have to invest in other customers. And the longer a prospect stays in the funnel, the less likely that they will buy. Learn how to keep them moving.
Why This Model? The shorter the length of the cycle, the more likely that you will close.
Whales Vs. Minnows
Every sales person wants to track down a whale of a customer as it is assumed that this is where all of the money is made. However, there are different reasons and different ways to sell to big companies versus small businesses.
Why This Model? Whales and minnows can close differently.
Setting Expectations
The customer has made the decision to move forward, so you have to prove to them that it’s the right decision. They will be judging.
Why This Model? Expectations are finalized during the closing stage.
CRM IT Tools
There are a lot of customer pieces to keep track of?how do you do it? You could start with an Excel spreadsheet, but when dealing with multiple locations and people, a centralized Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool is sometimes even more important.
Why This Model? During the close you want to be keeping track of your customers’ details.
Mirroring
Mirroring is when you perform similar behaviours to those of your counterpart. It’s scientifically proven to build an unspoken connection between two parties.
Why This Model? Mirroring helps with building the relationship and closing the deal.
Gender Selling
If women are from Venus and men are from Mars, why would we sell to them the same way? We shouldn’t!
Why This Model? Gender selling helps with building the customer relationship and closing the deal.
Cultural Selling
What you should absolutely know when selling to customers in other countries? Here is an overview of some major business hubs.
Why This Model? Cultural understanding helps with building the relationship and closing the deal.
