Are you ready to sell? Ableness, Closing and Action

This means being ready to ask:

• for the business-attempt at least once, to close the deal
• the required questions to define the client’s situation so they will be able to prescribe
• the next required action/movement defined by your sales process
• what your sales process require to be alive

And believe me, there are a lot of sales representatives that are not ready to sell.
This means that they are not ready to ask:

• for the deal, they just tell (they are in the telling business, as this case, not in the selling business)
• questions in order to have all the info required to craft a solution
• to the client to take the next action defined by your sales process

Let me illustrate with a case:

Recently, a client from Toronto asked for my help to design his selling strategies so he could sell the products that he was importing from his country. These were small, cheap and beautiful. They can be used as ornament in almost every part at home. We met in several opportunities to design precisely what he was going to say/do to sell them. He was planning to talk/visit the Buying Manager and send/leave to him a catalog containing photographs and descriptions of the products. This catalog was very well designed and printed. After having analyzed in detail his selling strategy, we arrived to the conclusion that sending/talking to the buying manager was useless. This was based in my experience.

Analyzing closely what he was trying to sell, we designed the following selling strategy:

• he was going to approach the sales representatives at the stores where he thought he could sell his products and engage with them in a soft inquiry conversation  about the products in the catalog, how well did they know their clients, who, among their clients might buy these products and "more than guess", if they were able to sell these products to their clients.

The thought that was behind this strategy was:

"The store sales representative have a lot of info related to the store's clients. They know the buying patterns of their clients, type of home that each one of them has and, most importantly, which of them where more suitable to buy, soon, the products that my client was selling. The buying manager wasn't an important person now, BUT indeed, he was an important person in the power chain, so we decide to leave him near the end of the sales process. The sales representatives were the ones that were going to sell these products. We were sure that if the store's sales representative thought that these products were 'sellable' to some of their clients, then, it was time to go to the sales manager. He will buy them."

After talking to several sales representatives, some of them suggested to start talking to the sales manager, what my client did immediately." Some of these visits went so well that they scheduled immediately a 2nd meeting to close the deal and make the first order.

A subtle but key distinction in closing.

After several 1st interviews with some sales representatives and sales managers, some 2nd interviews were scheduled with some sales managers. In our selling strategy design, these interviews were designed to close the sale. But before we created it, I asked him what exactly he was planning to do. He explained briefly that he was going to bring with him the catalog, he was going to review it with the sales manager and if he, the sales manager, asked for it, the catalog, he was going to leave it there, for further review. In fact, he thought in bringing some samples with him and show them to the buyer. In short, he was preparing himself to do more of the same: telling.

Then I asked:

• “What would happen if the client, in that moment, decides to place an order, how are you going to take it? What’s the purpose of you going to these 2nd interviews? Furthermore, what would happen if he, the client, doesn't decide to place an order, how are you going to help him to decide to buy from you?” 

I want to make clear that, yes, we were designing an entire sales process AND some selling strategies for his particular clients BUT, my purpose in asking him these questions was to find if he was thinking in closing the sale, in making a deal. And as you have read, I found out that that he didn't have that concept:

• how to make the client do something, in this case, accept the offer.

I know that for some of you, this could sound strange: not being aware of the ‘closing act’ of a sale, and please don’t take me wrong but, in my experience, lots of sales representatives, in order to avoid the uncomfortable moment that it represents, asking for something to the prospect/client, they just keep telling, hoping that the client will do the job for them. But if that doesn't happen, and normally it won't,  they leave the sales conversation, not only without having asked for the order but for anything in particular that could have helped him to move through his sales process. They go, as in this case, ‘just to tell’, not to sell.

The closing the sale mechanics and vehicles

He was in shock to discover that he didn't have the distinction: close a sale.. This concept of closing was missing from his selling repertoire so, after it was clear that we he needed to do something out of his normal and without risk presentation, we designed the closing mechanics. The other thing that I noticed while we were designing these closing mechanics was that he started to feel fear, some kind of uneasiness that he hasn't experienced before and then I knew it, he wasn't prepared to close the sale because he felt some type of nervousness and this is common in a lot of sales reps: they don't try enough to close the sale because they are protecting their EGO from rejection but that's another matter that I with deal with in future writings.

He discovered two things:

• that he needed a closing vehicle: a document or documents where to take the order and a receipt to register an advance or a deposit from the client
• that he needed a closing mechanics that allowed him to create the moment to ASK for and close the deal

How he did it? With the type of products that he was selling and the amount the clients were going to pay, we assumed, and later proved correctly, that it was going to be easy for him to say:

The dialog:

-“Now that we both know that your clients would want to have this in their backyards or in their living rooms or in their kitchens, and that we have arrived to some numbers them, then it is OK with you to start with 23 of this, 30 of this, and 15 of this?

(SILENCE... UNTIL THE CLIENT CONFIRMS AND/OR CHANGE THE NUMBERS AND TALKS VERBALLY.)

 -"Perfect, let me take the order here." (He writes and makes calculations to arrive to the final figure.)

 -"The total is X.00CAD. I need a deposit now and the rest at delivery."

(SILENCE... UNTIL THE CLIENT CONFIRMS AND/OR WANTS TO NEGOTIATE . THEN NEGOTIATE AND SILENCE AGAIN.)

 (Then, the client signs the order. My client asks and wait for the advance or makes a agreement to pick it up sometime in the future, agree on the delivery dates, says 'thank you' and leave.)

Some of you can imagine the amount of problems and anxiety that these mechanics produce in sales reps. Some are too shy just to follow this small but effective sequence. They don't execute it: they just tell, hope... and leave.

Results

When he 'got' the "I have to close/produce action in my clients" concept, he left the ‘telling’ mode and got into the ‘selling’ part which for him meant, start asking not only for the order but, as I have already mentioned, asking questions to better understand the client's situation, dare to ask for a the next appointment in order to keep alive his sales cycle, and, above all, being able to learn to ask. In that moment, ambition was installed.
He said: "A lot of things could happen if I just ask for them."

So... Are you ready to sell?

To close a sale, is required to ask for it. It's necessary to be able to produce action in the client. The client will be ready to take action just if he sees possibilities for himself in what he's being offered. I know that some prospects ask for the product/service by themselves but the majority of the sales reps still have to ask for the business/deal, particularly if they are selling B2C products.  There are thousands of books dedicated to the subject of closing a sale BUT, as I have explained to several clients, there is one critical distinction in the act of closing and this is the ability to produce action in other people. That is what closing is all about, to produce action, desired action in the client and the client is going to take action only if he sees possibilities for himself in the offer that the sales rep is doing.

Now, there is a huge difference about what a sales rep considers selling and what really is selling. There is a huge difference between selling and telling. Telling is a common presentation. They think that telling is selling and after some telling the client is going to 'jump' and say: "I want what you have, where do I sign?" But no, it doesn't work that way. If you want to break the inertia in which the client lives and want to move him in the right direction, you need to learn to ask.