How to Close the Sale - Part 1 Selling vs. Closing

Selling vs. Closing to Close the Sale

Merriam’s Dictionary describes selling as the action of persuading or influencing another to a course of action or to the acceptance of something. While most people get confused between the concepts of closing and selling. Though they may sound similar do not be mistaken; they’re two separate things! Closing is the critical exchange point whereby there is a transfer point from one action to another. This is where you quit SELLING, talking, promoting, and pitching and get your prospect to take action and exchange something they have for something you have.

Closing is the last step in the pursuit of any goal.

You have to sell in order to get to a close. They’re two different things, but selling is 80% of the sales process. It is the foundation. Without it there can be no final sale. Closing is the last 20% but it’s the most important. Without it there is no reason to have the other 80%. Without the close there is no value in the sales pitch. But without the sales pitch you can never get for the close. These two actions have to be done together to close the sale.

In order to sell you must appeal to a customers’ emotions. You must get the customer to fall in love with the product or service you’re providing. This is done by showing them the benefits, comparing it what they already have, and showing them that yours isn’t only better but making them realize that your product or service will solve their problems. You should stand when you sell. Let your love of the product and your attitude be so infectious that your customer begins to feel consumed by it and has no choice but to love it as well.

Once you’ve gotten them to fall in love with the product and believe that there’s nothing else that will help them, you should proceed to close the sale. Closing is based on logic and facts. Closing is about the numbers. Thus, closing is a science.

The first step in this process is to make sure you and your client are sitting down. Even if your client gets up to walk away, sit down to convey that you’re not done, yet. Getting up will only justify their reason for standing up. Always remember: “Standing is for losing, Sitting is for Closing.”

While you can talk during the selling process, in the close you have to show numbers. Write everything out, payment terms, down payment, financing numbers, and so on. In the close, you are logically showing the client that they can afford this product or service. That’s why my “Close the Sale” app (ClosetheSaleApp.com) for smart phones and the “Closer’s Survival Guide”program are essential to any closer. They provide the formulas necessary to understand the science of closing. To close the sale is like when you were learning in math, learning how to add and subtract. At first, it all seemed complicated and you were at a complete loss of how to do it. But as soon as you learned the rules, it was simple. That’s what closing is, adding and subtracting. The first step to close the sale is through knowing what closing is.

In the next part of the “How to Close the Sale” series, we’ll discuss how doing your research and rehearsal will help you close the sale even faster and better.

Grant Cardone, International Sales Training Expert and NY Times Best-Seller

Close the Sale - Cost of NOT Closing

How to Close the Sale - Part 2: Research, Rehearse, Close

Research and rehearse to close the sale

The saying goes, “Practice makes perfect.” No matter if you’re an athlete or an actor or a sales person, you must ALWAYS practice and train in your skill so that you can get better, be faster, close stronger.

In the first article of the “How to Close the Sale” series, we covered how any sales person who wants to close the sale MUST know the difference between “selling” and “closing.” This time we’ll discuss how you must research and rehearse in order to close the sale.

My wife is an actress and the first thing she does when she gets a role is she researches the role and character she is playing. This means anything from reading books to watching similar characters on TV or in movies. She then rehearses the role extensively and only then can she give her best performance. She does her research, her rehearsals, and then closes that deal by giving that great performance in the end.

Closing is the same way. Contrary to popular beliefs, there are actually a finite number of objections that a prospect will have. Those that sound new or different are usually just repackaged with different words. If you learn all of them and how to handle them, you will become a master closer. For me, my research and rehearse process comes in the form of taking all my experiences everyday and breaking them down into what I felt like I had success with and what I can do in order to improve a potential experience I could have in the future.

When I first started in sales, I had to spend years researching the objections. I would sit down after every meeting with a client and would write down every objection I heard. I would also then gauge how well my responses did at overcoming their objections. After years of doing this, I learned that almost every customer would give some type of objection that I had heard before. Knowing this, I had the answer to put them at ease and help me close the sale. (Luckily you don’t have to spend years doing the research I did, you can find my research in my Close the Sale app and in my Closer’s Survival Guide series). I’ve discovered every objection imaginable and have come up with literally hundreds of closes to counter each of them.

Once you have done your research you have to rehearse these closes. You have to get them to be second nature to you so that as soon as you hear an objection you know immediately, instantaneously how to respond. You can’t stumble through the words and hope the customer understands your point. You have to be confident with what you say to close the sale. This rehearsal can be as simple as saying the words out loud to yourself to practicing with a family member, friend or colleague.

Research and rehearsal lead to the most important aspect of the close: Confidence. When you know the objections and know that you can handle them, you will have an attitude of confidence and positivity that will be impossible for anyone to turn you down.

My wife has the same approach with her acting. When she shows up having done her research and rehearsal, she is so confident that she radiates when she performs. For me, I close the sale and completely shut it down. In the next article of the “How to Close the Sale” series, we’ll cover the top 5 steps to close the sale. Until then, research, rehearse, and close.

Close the Sale - Win Win

How to Close the Sale - Part 3: Top 5 Steps to Close the Sale

The Top 5 Steps to Close the Sale

Long, drawn-out transactions result in lower profits, poor customer satisfaction, and most definitely keeping you from closing the sale.

In the last article of the “How to Close the Sale” series, we discussed that to be successful in how to close the sale you must research and rehearse to close. This time I’ll give you five steps that business people have used to see improvements in customer satisfaction, employee turnover, and increased gross profits. Your sales process should be no more than 5-6 customer valued steps and 30-45 minutes at the most.

Here are the Top 5 Steps to Close the Sale:

1. The Greeting should be 30 seconds or less - initiate the offer of providing the buyer with information. Why wait for the customer to ask? Offer it and separate yourself from the ‘caveman’ down the street. A powerful greeting would be, “Welcome to __________ what can I get you information on?” This makes it known from the beginning that what you’re representing is friendly and easy and that the sales person is able to assist the customer in providing pricing, payments, down payments, interest rates, and all other information in order to close the sale.

2. Move Up, Not Down when it comes to price! Most sales people offer a lower price when they get an objection from the customer about price. The truth is when you move down on the price, the customer is actually less likely to want what you’re selling. When you move up in price, you’ll have him or her thinking in terms of value and discover if their original objection was really valid or not.

3. Present your proposal. We recently did a mystery shop for a major manufacturer and found that 64% of the time the sales person did NOT offer figures for the final purchase of their product. If you don’t enter the negotiations, the buyer CANNOT buy your product resulting in a wasted effort, resources, and advertising dollars. Why try and sell something if you’re not actually going to sell it?

4. Stand to Lose. Sit to Close. I can almost guarantee that you will not close a deal if you are standing up. Instead, you should sit your customer down and present to him or her what you can do in terms of service and back it up with facts on the product. Remember to sell your customer on emotion but close him or her on facts and figures. Put it on paper, on your computer monitor, some place visualso that they can actually see it with their own eyes. You customer will believe what they see rather than just what they hear so sit them down and close the sale.

5. Close or Exit. Closing is EVERYTHING. Sales people that cannot close will not do the other things necessary to be successful. This economy is a closer’s environment not a sales environment. Make everything easy and transparent using electronic generated worksheets that can be CUSTOMIZED to fit different buyer situations. (Warning- do NOT use one worksheet for all buyers.) If you are unable to close the transaction, then make sure that your buyer exits with information packages and a manager using an exit survey. This way, you have a foundation you’ve created to help you close the deal better if that customer comes back.

I guarantee that if you follow these 5 steps, they will help you close that sale. In thenext part of the “How to Close the Sale” series, I’ll be discussing probably the most important thing you’ve got to close on in order to close the sale, that one thing… is YOU.

Close the Sale - The Able Close

How to Close the Sale - Part 4: Be Closed on You!

Be YOU to Close the Sale

Even if the product or service you’re selling is the best that’s out there, the one thing that will be even more critical to close the sale is YOU. That’s right… you. How can you close the sale if the customer doesn’t trust the person selling them?

In the last part of the “How to Close the Sale” series, I gave you 5 steps to take to help you close the sale. To go along with those steps, at the bottom of it all is you. You need to have the confidence, knowledge, and skills necessary to utilize these strategies that will help you ultimately close the sale.

All it takes is one “wrong” response from the sales person to the potential to lose the sale and waste that opportunity. And with the economy the way it is, each and every one counts! So many companies out there have put all of their focus on their service or product that most have forgotten about their responsibility to work on the fundamentals. The fundamentals will teach you how to close the sale. It’s essential that management and everyone in the sales team return to working on basic communication skills in order to fully take advantage of every opportunity that comes up.

Companies will rely on each individual sale in an economy where there aren’t as many sales opportunities as there once were. An untrained and unprepared sales person who stammers and gives out badly thought-out answers is too costly for any company. It’s crucial that each business to present a different experience with their sales teams in order to stand apart from the competition to build a positive atmosphere that will help close the sale.

Value is extremely subjective and much more crucial than price!

When the sales consultant spends too much time discussing price, he or she compromises the development of value. This doesn’t mean you don’t discuss price but rather handle it appropriately and return to building value!

Has a customer ever told you that what you’re selling is too expensive and then goes to your competition and purchases it for even more? This is proof that the value of price really is a myth. In reality, that customer wasn’t talking about the value of what you were selling but instead the value of your service not being worth the price of what you were selling.

You as the sales person must create a positive selling environment, one that presents honest and reliable communication to provide information and service that is non-confrontational. This is your job as a great sales person, and if you can do that, I can guarantee that you’ll be able to close the sale. This all begins with a clear introduction of yourself and a firm handshake. Everything else will follow.

After you’ve become closed on yourself, the next step is for you to be closed on the product or service you’re selling which we’ll cover in the next article of the “How to Close the Sale” series.

Grant Cardone, International Sales Training Expert and NY Times Best-Selling Author

Close the Sale - The Be Grateful Close

How to Close the Sale - Part 5: Be Closed on What You’re Selling

Know Your Product to Close the Sale

Once you are fully sold on yourself and have the confidence and sales training necessary to provide outstanding service to the customer, the next most important thing to help you close the sale involves the actual product or service you are actual selling.

In part 5 of the “How to Close the Sale” series, we’ll cover the importance of how you must fully know the product or service you are selling and be sold on it in order to close the sale. If you aren’t convinced enough to know an answer to every possible question or objection a customer can have about what you’re selling, then how can you sell them on it?

Being a great sales person means knowing everything about the product or service that you are selling. In order to know everything about it, you yourself must be closed on that product or service. You have to fully believe that what it is you are offering is so incredible, so life-changing, that everyone out there must have it because it will improve their lives.

In order to effectively close the sale, you must be so passionate and so knowledgeable that you know your product or service like the back of your hand. Any question or objection that your customer may have during the sale you should be able to confidently answer so that you address what they have to say and close them with what you have to offer.

Be a source of information for the buyer instead of trying to hide it from them. The old adage was, “The less my people know, the better off they will be.” This idea has resulted in catastrophic turnover and dealers paying for customer satisfaction scores. Information is the gateway to closing more deals. The more credible, believable, and expedient the sales person and processes, the more likely they will close the sale and the higher the chances of profit!

Once you’ve gotten them to fall in love with the product and believe that there’s nothing else that will help them, you should proceed to close the sale.

You have to know that the customer will have certain objections, but you must be able to get past them. Their objections are based on emotions that they have from before you even began to sell them on the product or service. They’re probably just reacting to a negative experience they’ve had in the past. The only way to get past their negative emotions is to use logic and facts to make sure you show them that this time their experience will not only be different but better. That is how to close the sale.

Again, be closed on whatever it is you are selling so much so that you know everything about it. I promise you that once you are, you will close the sale and many more afterward. In the final piece to my “How to Close the Sale” series, I’ll cover the final point to what this whole series is about and why it’s important: how to close the sale.

Grant Cardone, International Sales Training Expert and NY Times Best-Selling Author

Close the Sale - The 1st Agreement Close

How to Close the Sale - Part 6: CLOSE THE SALE

All that Matters is to Close the Sale

In this final part of the How to Close the Sale series, I want to discuss that success is all about being able to do one thing: close the sale.

Today’s retail landscape is a closer’s environment not a sales environment. It’s not the best product or the best service that wins but the sales organization that can close the sale. There is only one lowest-price provider in any given market. It’s not the lowest price, lowest payment, or even the best terms that wins, but the sales organization that is able to best make sense of their proposition.

Let’s face it your manufacturer has done massive amounts of research on the price points of your products and what incentives are necessary to make that product a competitive value. Lowering the price and improving the terms is a deadly strategy that’s left other companies suffering and unable to close the sale.

There are only four ways to distinguish yourself in the market -price, product, people, andprocesses. Only two of the latter are those that you control. You don’t make the product, and you don’t control the pricing. All of your attention and solutions should be placed on two things you can control- people and processes.

For instance, if you’re in the auto industry, the old sales process of keeping the buyer at your dealership as long as possible, negotiating for 4 hours to make a mini-deal, and trying to give as little information as possible is at best resisted and as most would agree, over with! We live in the world of information, with buyers accessing invoice, financing terms, and trade figures over their smart phones! It’s safe to assume that all buyers (not just some) are internet buyers today. This means if the buyer is better informed, you must better inform your sales people and management team!

It's all about the Close.

Quick recap:

1) You are not paid to sell you are paid to close.

2) It’s impossible to have customer satisfaction until you close the sale.

3) If you can’t close, you won’t be motivated to do the other things.

4) There is no value exchanged until a close takes place.

5) There can only be one lowest cost provider in any market so the rest of you will have to learn how to make sense of the money and close the sale!

Bring your sales process into the 21^st century – Make your process quick, easy, and believable for your buyer, and then focus all your energy and efforts on training your people on how to close the sale. An organization that knows how to successfully close the sale is an organization that is closing more sales!

Be successful and CLOSE THE SALE!

Grant Cardone, International Sales Training Expert and NY Times Best-Selling Author