1. Waiting for the prospect to take the initiative and ask for the sale
2. Asking the prospect what they think
3. Using some inducement with the hopes the prospect will initiate the sale

Now let us look at a few more direct and clear ways to ask for the sale that will help you make more money.

#1. Sign Here
There are not too many ways to be more direct when closing than to ask to prospect to put their signature on the order form or contract. Such closing requires a strong and confident sales person, as well as some very tactful wording. Here’s an example:

Sales Person
With order pad or contract in hand, uses pen to direct the prospect’s eyes as he speaks, carefully watching the prospect for reactions, says:

“So Steve, the whole thing looks like this: We have the two dozen cases of the extra-wide widgets, two cases of the medium, and one case of the small. It all comes to only £2,844, plus shipping.”

Sales Person turns the order, placing it and the pen in front of prospect, and saying:

“Now all I need is your OK right there Steve, and I’ll put a rush order on the shipping.”

Like I said, such a close is not for the timid.

#2. The Alternate of Choice
Though many sales people use this method to ask for the order, often they do so with little conviction and strength. Verify order details or logistics by giving the prospect two options, but you have to do it with an assumptive attitude. You have to believe that you are merely verifying the details, or it comes across as a con and the prospect will feel as if you are trying to manipulate them.

Give the prospect the alternative of choice between two buying or logistical options

Sales Person:
“Finally, Sarah, we will deliver, install and test the software. The total comes to £3,400 for the first year and then £425 per year in maintenance fees. Now, do you want to set up the installation for Friday, or the beginning of next week?”

Sales Person:
“The whole thing comes to only £2,844, plus shipping. So, Steve should I put that on a rush order, or our normal 4-day delivery?”

#3. Ask a Closing Question, Shake Hands, Congratulate and Assume the Rest
This also requires confidence. Ask a closing or bridge question, and then assume the sale. By a bridge question, I am referring to that question that simply helps bridge that gap between the end of the sales presentation and the time you strongly ask for the order.

A few I really like are: “Does that make sense?” and “Is that fair enough?” Asks such a question, congratulate the prospect on making a great decision, and start writing up the order. You can also use such a bridge with the above closes as well.

Sales Person:
“Finally, Sarah, we will deliver, install and test the software. The total comes to £3,400 for the first year and then £425 per year in maintenance fees. Does that make sense?”

Prospect:
“Yeah. It looks good.”

Sales Person: Extends hand to shake…
“Great Sarah! Congratulations. You have made one of the best decisions you can possibly make in your IT department. We have a little paperwork to take care of and we’ll be all set…”

Also, use this close combined with the above…

Sales Person:
“The whole thing comes to only £2,844, plus shipping. Is that fair enough, Steve?

Prospect:
“Yeah. It looks like a good rate.”

Sales Person:
“Great Steve. So, Steve should I put that on a rush order, or our normal 4-day delivery?”

It is normal for people to want to put off making a decision. It is your job to help them make that decision and you cannot do that if you do not properly ask them to make a decision.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

Now before you say, “Oh, I don’t have that problem…” you may want to read on.

Below are three ways of NOT asking for the sale, followed by three ways of really asking for the sale.

Three Ways of NOT Asking For The Sale

#1. Wait For The Prospect To Make the First Move
One of the most popular closes, (or should I say anti-closes), is when the sales person presents the offer and waits for the prospect to say something. The sales person waits, hoping the prospect will say, “Ok! Give me a pen, where do I sign?” which usually does not happen.

Sales Person
“So Steve, the whole thing looks like this: We have the two dozen cases of the extra-wide widgets, two cases of the medium, and one case of the small. The whole thing comes to only £2,844, plus shipping.”

Silence.

Sales Person looks up at prospect, smiles, and then looks back down at order.

Silence.

I’m sorry my friends, but this is not asking for the order.

#2. The, “So What Do You Think?” Close
Sales people terrified to ask for the sale, often use this. Since they appear to be asking a closing question, the sales person feels as if he or she accomplishes something, without directly asking for the order and thereby avoiding the risk of direct rejection. The sales person does indeed accomplish something with this close…they make the whole situation much worse.

Sales Person: “Finally, Sarah, we will deliver, install and test the software. The total comes to £3,400 for the first year and then £425 per year in maintenance fees. So what do you think?”

First, asking the prospect what they think, is not asking them to buy. However, what is worse is that turning to logical thinking is the last thing you want the prospect to do at that point. People make buying decisions based primarily on emotion. They then back up those decisions with the logical thinking.

By asking the prospect what they think, you are invoking the wrong part of the prospect’s brain and you still have not asked him or her to make a decision.

Is it any wonder why the prospect eventually responds by telling you they want to THINK about it? You just asked them what they think!

#3. The Incentive Close
Another way that sales people can ask for the sale without clearly asking for the sale is to use some incentive in an effort to stimulate the prospect to action.

“So Steve, the whole thing looks like this: We have the two dozen cases of the extra-wide widgets, two cases of the medium, and one case of the small. The whole thing comes to only £2,844, plus shipping.”

“However Steve, if you place an order with me today, not only will we pick up the shipping costs, but we will give you an additional box of the small widgets…absolutely FREE!”

Silence.

You cannot wait for the prospect to snatch the contract out of your hand and close himself!

Posting Dec 28th, 2011:

Three Ways Of Asking For the Sale

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Bestselling Author, Sales Authority & Speaker On Modern Day Selling Methods 

MTD Sales Training

(Image by Jeroen van Oostrom)

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

The question is, how do we get buyers to understand that their needs are more improtant than price, so they are willing to pay more for a better solution?

Well, we begin by getting them to appreciate their needs and wants fully, by convincing and hard-hitting questions that put the emphasis on their busienss rather than the cheapness of the competitions’ offerings.

Much reserach has demonstrated that your undersatnding the quantatative value of your benefits to the customer hels you gain more value form your market. What value is your solution worth to your customers? What impact does that value hav eon their businesses or their lives? You can shift your buyer’s focus onto value and away from price with thse type of questions:

1) Questions that focus on non-price issues

See if you can get these type of questions into your discussions:

“What do your buyers look for from you?”
“What takes away some of your profitability?”
“How much technical support do you require as back up?”
What will you gain by finding a solution to this problem?”
What trends are you seeing in your customers’ buying motives?”

These will help you focus on things outside the question of price and identify other issues that are probably more important than price to them.

2) Questions that focus on your added-value

This builds the strength of your company in the propsect’s eyes.

“How much flexibility do you require from a supplier?”
“How can we make it easier for you to buy from us?”
“What issues concern you the most?”
“How important are back-up services to you and your customers?”
“Do you have special ordering or stock-level considerations?”
“Would it help if we offered training for your staff in using the product?”

3) Questions that create urgency

These focus on acting quickly, a motive that could reinforce reasons for using you.

“What impact do delays in process-ordering have on your customers?”
“What are your short-term objectives?”
“How much do delays cost your company?”
“Are you getting full utilisation out of your current solution?”

4) Questions that paint pictures of the future

Focusing on a successful outcome for the customer will encourage them to think of you as they associate success with your product.

“What do you see happening as you move forward on this project?”
“If you had the ideal solution, what would it be?”
“How would the future look for your business if you succeeded?”
“What pressures would be taken off you when you make a decision to go ahead?”

These type of questions shift the buyer’s perspective away from price because they get them to focus on ideas and concepts that build value, and the emphasis is on results, not processes. Get the buyer to think in terms of the benefits they can receive from what you offer, and they are more likely to see the value of doing business with you, as long as those values are aligned to their buying criteria.

Happoy Selling

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

However, most salespeople we train overestimate the quality of their communication skills, some by a vast amount. If I were to ask you how you would rate your listening and questioning skills out of ten, how many of you would say ‘minus two’?!

We think we are good at communicating because we get the sale and we have a bunch of customers who keep coming back to us. But what about the next step in communicating? Here’s my take on things: Salespeople with good listening skills will hear the issues their prospect has. Salespeople with good questioning skills will identify the problems causing those issues. Salespeople with both listening and questioning skills will be able to reiterate those problems and issues.

All good and fine so far. But let’s go further. Some of the best salespeople I’ve met have the ability to recognise the one compelling thing for which their prospect will invest money. You must be able to perceive the one thing that might not even be on the list, and this involves deeper listening and reading between the lines of what might be greater opportunities for the prospect than they had originally thought. It’s deeper than just being a salesperson, deeper even than being a consultant.

It’s partnering with the business in a way that creates opportunities for both parties, rather than just solving current problems. That prospect will spend money with your company to no longer feel overwhelmed with their whole list of issues because you will help them achieve things they couldn’t do with anyone else.

Can you imagine being in the prospect’s shoes when they see rewards they hadn’t seen before, see challenges lifted that they couldn’t see past? Can you identify those areas of concern that has been restricting their business opportunities? If you can, you show yourself as the kind of company and salesperson they cannot do their business without.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

Here are 10 hard-hitting questions designed to rattle your cage when it comes to your sales style.

* If you could start your sales career over again, what would you change? What would you do differently and why?

* What do you do to ensure you prepare effectively for each and every prospect call? Could you find out more?

* What are the main objections you face and what are you doing to eradicate them all?

* What are you doing to improve your sales knowledge each and every day?

* What area of your sales process have you improved in the last week, month or quarter? Why? How?

* What specifically causes you problems when you’re selling? What are you doing to overcome them?

* Which area of the sales process would have the biggest impact on sales if you were able to improve in it?

* Where or how do you find you are wasting most time in the week?

* If you lose a sale, how do you react and why?

* If you lost one of your key accounts, what would the impact be? What are your plans to keep them loyal to you?

These are only a few cage-rattlers, but their answers should highlight areas that you need to work on while developing all your strengths.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

The husband was definitely not a gardener, and hadn’t done anything of any significance to his garden for all the time they had lived there. If he had done any work in the garden at all, it was purely superficial. He certainly hadn’t dug down any further than a few inches below the surface.

One day, the husband and wife decided they wanted the garden re-landscaped. He called in a firm to do it for him. On the first day of work, the foreman of the landscaping team approached the husband and showed him some coins he had dug up. They looked very old.

The husband immediately took the coins to the local museum and they turned out to be medieval, and worth a great deal of money.

How deep did the foreman have to dig before they unearthed the coins? No more than nine inches!

The husband was interviewed afterwards and asked how he felt about having such a find so close. He said, “If only I had been a keen gardener, I would probably have found them many years ago, because I would have dug deeper!”

It set me thinking about how many salespeople fail to uncover riches that exist in their current customer base, simply because they don’t dig deeper with their questioning to find out more about their customers’  businesses.

Questions are the life-blood of your communications. They uncover many rich gems of information that would otherwise be left hidden away. They create opportunities that others could take advantage of. What would happen if a competitor came along and uncovered those opportunities, simply by asking your customer deeper questions? Build on the answers your customers have given you so you can find specific areas of concern that your customer hadn’t unearthed before.

Are you aware of how much business may be hidden just below the surface in your customers’ business? Take some of the situations your customer is currently involved in and dig deeper to ascertain if there’s more hidden gems there. That way, you help your customer (and yourself) achieve more business. And you won’t need to say, like that reluctant gardener, if only I had dug deeper years ago!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

Many offered the idea that they should build rapport with customers by commenting on the weather, some items the prospect has in the office, what their journey was like that day, and so on. Our trainer asked how long they take to ask these ‘rapport’ questions. One delegate said he has been known to spend 15-20 minutes talking about football to a new client, simply because they have a momento of some sort that shows they have an interest in sport.

We normally ask at this point how much knowledge the salesperson has gained about the prospect, other than what team they support? Obviously, it’s very little.

Instead of asking these types of questions, salespeople should be asking  business-related questions. Questions that will make your customer think about their business. Questions that will encourage and stimulate conversation. Let’s face it; how many of your prospects have got that amount of time to ‘chew the cud!’

Here are some examples of business-related questions that will get you straight to the point of the meeting

*  What are your company’s strategic initiatives?

*  What are the three biggest challenges in growing your business this year?

*  What are three things that if you could do them better would dramatically improve your business?

*  What would you do if you lost two of your top ten customers?

*  What are your plans to keep them loyal?

*  What are three things that your competitors are doing that you should be doing?

*  Because you aren’t doing things the way you would like, ‘conservatively’ how much money are you NOT making?

My trainer told me that all the delegates were furiously writing down those questions, many of them saying they had never used them before, but would in the future.

Your prospects simply don’t have the time for small-talk these days. If you want to find out what team they support or what their holiday was like, leave it until you have the relevant information and are walking with the prospect back to reception. You’re there for a business meeting, and it’s important to show your professionalism early on. There’s plenty of time for the personal stuff when you have built up trust.

Happy selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

It’s also true that sometimes the customer may simply shut up and make it very difficult for you to get them to expand on a point.

There’s an interesting communication technique that you can use to encourage your customer to be more specific and expensive in his answers, giving you the chance to find out a lot more information. And the technique involves asking a one-word question.

Use this when your customer says something you don’t quite understand, makes a point that needs clarification, or is too general in their ideas.

Put your head to one side slightly, raise your eyebrows, maintain full eye contact and just say, in a very inquisitive tone…”Oh?”

That’s all you need to do. No expansion needed. No further utterances required.

That one simple word, said in an inquisitive tone, will open up the customer to expand on what they were saying, often going further than they would have done if you had asked a specific question that narrowed down the thought-process.

Everyone knows what you want when you ask that one-word question. Use it once, or at the most, twice in a conversation, and see the amount of information you gain multiply.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

Now, with a billing like that, it certainly attracts attention. When you make that sort of claim, you have to be prepared to be sifted, sorted and challenged.

Johnny did exactly that. “So, you’re the greatest salesman in the world…sell me something!” Johnny said.

The man asked, “OK, what do you want me to sell?”

Johnny replied, “Oh, how about this ashtray on my desk?”. Johnny expected the man to go into a sales pitch. Instead, the salesman asked, “What do you like about this ashtray?”

Johnny spoke about its unusual shape, its colour and how it matches other things on his desk. The guest asked how much Johnny would be willing to spend on an ashtray of that colour, that shape and matching the other items.

Johnny replied, “Oh, maybe $10?”

“Sold!!” said the salesman.

Uncovering the customer’s needs is the main pre-requisite to getting to the close. You need to persuade the customer to state their own needs and get them to experience either pain in not solving their problems, or reward in solving them. By getting your customer to convince himself of the need, they figuratively own the product in their mind before you even have to use any closing ‘techniques’, and this produces buying signals. The gaining of commitment to agree to using your product or service should be a natural progression in the conversation. No tricks, no bluffs, just good old acceptance of the need to have what you’ve got.

When you’ve got the customer to persuade themselves, it’s a no-brainer for the customer to say they want it.And that can only be good for business!

Happy Selling

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…

If I had a pound for the number of times someone has asked me that question, I’d be quite a bit richer! Naturally, we answer in terms of what we actually DO, as the questioner is normally edging in that direction.

Many of us have been taught to answer with an ‘elevator speech’, a few succinct words that encapsulate our service or offering in the time it takes to travel a few floors in an elevator. If you’ve tried this, it isn’t too long before most people’s eyes glaze over and you have to wake them up from their hypnotic trance.

Most elevator speeches are as exciting as watching my grass grow, but they don’t have to be. How about something different? How about asking the person a couple of questions that will show your interest in understanding their business pains and opportunities?

This will help them see you as someone who can offer real help and value instead of simply another salesperson up against all your competition.

When someone asks me what I do, I reply with something like: “Well, I’m glad you asked. May I ask you, What would happen if you lost two of your biggest customers?” That’s a hard-hitting question that gets the customer thinking about his business while he’s looking at me.

Then I follow up with another hard-hitting question: “What’s your business plan to keep those customers loyal to you?”

I’ve got the prospect thinking again, and he’s probably stalling while he thinks of the answer.

So I carry on with a quick resumé of what we could do for him: “We are in the business of helping businesses like yours answer questions like these”

It certainly grabs attention, creates desire to know more and piques their interest in what I have to offer.

Most clients have heard elevator speeches that are too generic. Think about how your services would affect your prospect’s business and then think up two or more hard-hitting questions that would make them stop and think about themselves. Interestingly, while their conscious brain is thinking of answers, their unconscious brain is associating the answers with you, as you’re the one standing there in front of them!

So think up at least ten questions that would show your prospects you are someone worth talking to. Then add some more, so you have a toolkit of ideas in your armoury to assist you in any meeting.

Questions get your prospects thinking. Make sure they think about you.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
The UK’s #1 Authority On Modern Day Selling
MTD Sales Training

Have you downloaded my latest report “The Sales Person’s Crisis”? Over 10,000 sales pros have.

Click on the image below to find out why you’re very existence as a sales person is in doubt…