Throughout the sales process, you should always be listening to the questions prospects and customers ask you. They are clues to what they are thinking. The questions salespeople love to hear are the ones that signal an intent to buy including: What credit terms do you offer? Can I try it one more time? How much lead time do you need? How does the installation process work? How soon could training begin?
When you hear these buying signals, your response will lead into a natural process of order forms, contracts, checks, and so on. If you’ve developed a good solution and you’ve established that it’s within their price range, the buying commitment should be a natural outcome.
However, sometimes the positive buying questions don’t come and your customer starts to back away from the process. There’s something wrong … either the prospect isn’t giving you complete information or you’ve missed something along the way. What do you do? … back to the questions! Candidly ask what’s blocking the decision. The collaborative sales process isn’t designed to put pressure on your customers. It’s designed to solve their problems or help them take advantage of opportunities. It’s what you’ve done up until now that will make or break the sale. If your customer isn’t sold by now, more pressure won’t do it. What’s needed is more specific communication about what they need or what you have to offer. That’s why asking open-ended questions like “Where do we go from here?” or “How should we proceed?” or “What do you see as our next step?” tell you what else the customer needs in order to move the process forward so you can implement the solution you’ve created together. You can’t work as partners through all the stages of the sale and then, at the end, try to use a manipulative closing technique to clinch the deal. It doesn’t make sense.
One of the reasons a traditional closing technique sometimes works is that the constant pressure on the customer forces him to tell you what’s really holding up the sale. But if you can get the same information by communicating openly and honestly, there is no need for the pressure. But what happens when you don’t get an unqualified YES at this point?
It’s possible that you may have to prod your customer to tell you what’s really blocking implementation of the solution you’ve worked out together. Don’t be afraid to ask for open, honest communication about what’s happening.
In traditional selling, the salesperson pressures the prospect to “close” the sale. Pressure creates problems in the sales relationship. To reduce the pressure, the prospect may create a smoke screen. A smoke screen is something that obscures the relationship or the decision-making process. Common ones are “Your price is too high,” and “I want to think about it.” Both may indicate that your customer is uncomfortable communicating their uncertainty — they’re avoiding telling you their true feelings and thoughts. And listen to the way it sounds when you say you are going to “close” your customer. How would YOU like to be “closed?” It sounds like it’s the end.
By the time a salesperson gets to this stage of the sale – after good information gathering and a collaborative solution process, there should be a high probability that the proposed solution will be accepted. However, there are also some reasons why it might be rejected. We live in a rapidly changing environment — priorities change, people move, people lose their jobs or suffer a sudden loss in the stock market. Companies merge, go out of business, and change directions … sometimes overnight. The person who had the authority and interest to purchase your product yesterday may be in a different division tomorrow. What all this change means is that in some cases, by the time you get to the end of the sales process, you may find that there is no longer a perceived need. In others cases, you may find that you have to start the whole process over again from the beginning. But most of the time, if you’ve done a good job of exploring needs, collaborating and selecting options, you’ll find that things go just as planned and you’ll be settling the details and beginning a new customer relationship.
In those cases when you do lose the sale, you’ll want to make sure you don’t lose the relationship. If things fall apart at the last minute, you can express your disappointment at not getting to work with the customer and support her as much as you can in whatever decision she makes. Let her know that you will stay in touch.
Use the final minutes of the call to pave the way for the next call, if there is to be a next call. Note any commitments you made such as price quotes, delivery dates or terms discussed. Above all, be sure to let the customer know that you want to maintain the relationship. If appropriate, ask for a post-sale analysis of specifically what you could have done better in order to spot trends or problems that you can avoid in future sales. Make notes following each call so you can evaluate your performance. Doing that even after confirmed sales would point out your strengths.
Visualize both your failures and successes often. By doing so, you will reinforce the successful and effective things you do. Your mental repetition of productive behaviors will create strong working habits and a higher percentage of successful sales.