THE SALES CYCLE: PART 7
The Close!
The Close!
What is it anyway?
Arguably it is the most discussed, digested, bisected, over-analyzed and over-emphasized step of any sales cycle – something that can make or break careers, businesses and lives; fill one with a feeling of immense power and expansive invulnerability when successfully concluded or bring even the strongest to their knees with feelings of personal insignificance and powerlessness when it slips away.
But, what nobody is talking about is that the close is the easiest of all the steps in the sales cycle . . . providing you have done your “pre-close” steps to their proper result. If you have, then it is simply the final step in a sequence of logical gradients leading to a desirable end point.
Done properly, you won’t be able to stop the customer from buying what you’re selling; just get out of the way and they’ll close themselves. Often there is so much fixated focus on this one step that the salesperson skips over the prior steps as if they were unimportant. Then they find that the close is like pulling teeth out of a wounded water buffalo stuck in quicksand!
So what is a “close” anyway?
a) The close: The end of an activity, period of time, spoken word or written text.
b) To close: To bring to an end, or bring something to an end; to complete a transaction successfully, note: it is an ACTION verb.
In common sense terms, “a close” or “to close” simply means to shut the door on any further competition; stop selling and start delivering on your promises; bring to a conclusion all the previous steps; the “sales cycle” has come full circle and you’re ready to begin a new cycle all over in a new unit of time.
a) The close: The end of an activity, period of time, spoken word or written text.
b) To close: To bring to an end, or bring something to an end; to complete a transaction successfully, note: it is an ACTION verb.
In common sense terms, “a close” or “to close” simply means to shut the door on any further competition; stop selling and start delivering on your promises; bring to a conclusion all the previous steps; the “sales cycle” has come full circle and you’re ready to begin a new cycle all over in a new unit of time.
To review:The “sales cycle” is composed of a series of logical steps each requiring a set of actions to be completed successfully. When you find yourself or the client hung up at one or another of the steps, you MUST remember this fact or you will not close the sale:
The step you’re having trouble with is NOT the problem!
Increasing the pressure, force, insistence through heavy emotion to get through the step you’re having trouble with will never get you through to a final close. Because, it’s the WRONG STEP.
The thing that is wrong is found on an earlier step than the one you’re focused on. Always! Go back! Because you have missed a step. There was something that the client didn’t fully get or that you didn’t completely handle with them.
Again the Six Steps of any successful sale are:
The step you’re having trouble with is NOT the problem!
Increasing the pressure, force, insistence through heavy emotion to get through the step you’re having trouble with will never get you through to a final close. Because, it’s the WRONG STEP.
The thing that is wrong is found on an earlier step than the one you’re focused on. Always! Go back! Because you have missed a step. There was something that the client didn’t fully get or that you didn’t completely handle with them.
Again the Six Steps of any successful sale are:
0. Preparation for the sales process – mentally and physically
1. Contact the client and qualify them
2. Discover his/her purposes
3. Present your product/service as the solution
4. Handle objections/increase understanding
5. Clarify the benefits/reinforce the purpose
6. Close the sale
00. Complete the paperwork
Remember that every one of the Six Steps is as important as any other. None can be skipped or neglected. The process cannot be reduced any further and still hope to achieve the desired result. It is like a recipe. Just because salt looks like sugar doesn’t mean you can change the recipe and still hope to end up with a cake.
2. Discover his/her purposes
3. Present your product/service as the solution
4. Handle objections/increase understanding
5. Clarify the benefits/reinforce the purpose
6. Close the sale
00. Complete the paperwork
Remember that every one of the Six Steps is as important as any other. None can be skipped or neglected. The process cannot be reduced any further and still hope to achieve the desired result. It is like a recipe. Just because salt looks like sugar doesn’t mean you can change the recipe and still hope to end up with a cake.
These are the steps in the order they can be approached and completed to get what you’re going for. There are manifestations that you can observe in the customer that will tell you where you missed something.
In the final part, part 8 in this series, we’ll examine some symptoms of each of the steps above.
daniel w. jacobs
© 2002-2020, all rights reserved
© 2002-2020, all rights reserved
