3 Steps to Creating the Right Environment for Closing Sales
Closing sales on time has always been an essential part of the sales process…
Indeed, to be truly valued by your employer, you need to be able to close sales both in line with your forecasts and your sales targets.
But this challenging prospect has become much more difficult in recent years. Buyers have become more cautious as their budgets have been squeezed and they are under higher pressure to run multiple projects at the same time.
This means that prospects have less time to focus on any one solution and are scrutinising buying decisions in greater detail. Consequently, closing sales has become much more difficult in today’s economic climate.
By creating the right conditions for a successful close, however, you can defy these trends. You can ensure commitments from your prospects to sign deals and win sales faster and at a higher value than your colleagues AND competitors. In turn, this will make you a much more confident and valuable sales person in the eyes of your employers.
In our online sales training programme, Black Belt Selling, and face-to-face sales training events we teach a simple three-step formula to creating the right environment for closing sales:
1. Create an external compelling event in the mind of the prospect to ensure that he or she wants - and needs - to close the deal by the same date as you;
2. Make sure that the contract is ready to sign, that the buyer has it, and has agreed to the content by the time you are ready to close;
3. Create the right psychological environment for the buyer to make a commitment before making the close.
This may seem challenging but you will have far greater success when closing sales by following these steps.
Creating the right psychological environment
Perhaps the most difficult stage outlined above is creating the right psychological environment for the prospect. While the first two steps help facilitate this, you must also ensure that:
- The perceived benefits (i.e. the value and speed of a return) of working with YOU are the greatest;
- Your solution is seen as the buyer’s own idea;
- The buyer is certain that others in his or her own position would also buy into your solution;
- The buyer’s effort is minimised at each stage of the sales cycle (in terms of decision making, complexity, and action).
In summary, to be a master at closing sales you need to appeal to the buyer’s personal and professional motivations while creating real value and goals which will lead the sale to a successful close.
The compelling event that you create in the mind of the prospect must be perceived as critical and urgent. At the same time you need to convince them that the benefits of working with you far exceed those of working with your competition. But remember, the compelling event should be external. Internal issues might offend buyers and may even persuade them that any problems can be dealt with at a later date.
Written by: Steve Eungblut, Managing Director of Sterling Chase
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