Selling is all about closing the deal, right? Well, sort of. If you think about it more clearly, selling means helping the customer move through each stage of their buying process. Closing is really just the point where the buying decision is made.
Questions like “what do I need to do to close this deal” are therefore puerile and non-productive. A much more sensible way to think about closing is to ask yourself these four questions:
- What will be involved in this particular buying process? Each company has their own set of policies and procedures they use when buying something, so you need to understand all the steps and the people involved in the buying process for each opportunity.
- Where is the customer within their buying process? When you engage with the customer, they may already have taken steps to evaluate solutions, obtain funding, or get approval for the project that your solution would be a part of. Learn what’s already happened and what still needs to happen.
- What is the next reasonable step the customer needs to take? Always think, “What should we ask our customer to do next?” Then think, “What would be the logical next step after that?” The better you understand what must take place going forward, the more effective you will be.
- What must I do to help the customer take that step? Once you understand all of the above, figure out what you’re going to say or do on the next sales call to help them take that step. Go into each meeting with a plan of what you hope to accomplish based on the customer’s buying process.
When you focus your thinking and behavior on helping the customer through a buying process, closing becomes more or less automatic. Then you don’t have to TRY to close the deal. Get it?
Or, in the words of someone who would have made a great sales manager: “Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.”
The above is based on a conversation I recently had with Bill Stinnett, author of the bestselling books Think Like Your Customer and the new Selling Results (McGraw Hill, 2006).
