Stop Selling to Close More

January 19th, 2010

When you really want (or possibly need) to close a sale, it’s easy to drop into “convincing” mode.  You begin to sound like the stereotypical “high-pressure” salesperson explaining the benefits of the various features of your product or service and “justifying” the costs.

These are precisely the things you shouldn’t be doing.  Why?  Because, when you drop into “convincing” mode, you talk too much — which will decrease your chance to closing the sale quickly, or perhaps closing it all.

Less is more — relevant.  Prospects don’t need to know everything about your product or service, only those aspects that directly address their concerns, problems, issues, goals, and objectives.

Overloading them with additional information may raise doubts or bring to the surface additional elements they need to “think about.”

During a sales call, the objective is to help prospects discover how you can help them solve their problems, meet their challenges and reach their goals, not tell them.  Learn to educate with questions and third-party stories.

Also, recognize when the sale is made, and then stop “selling.”  Salespeople who talk too much soon become victims of the 5/55 rule — they make the sale in the first 5 minutes of the meeting, and then spend the next 55 minutes “buying” it back.

Once the prospect has made a buying decision, trying to reinforce the decision by adding additional information will most often do more harm than good.

© Sandler Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

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