Sales Techniques for Small Business
Tips for closing the sale
Closing is a make or break moment in sales. The final outcome will determine whether all your efforts during the sales engagement process have been effective.
Broad, open-ended sales questions are great for helping us to find out what’s going on in the minds of your prospects open questions help us to:
- Connect with buyers personally,
- Understand their needs,
- Understand what’s important to them,
- Help them solve problems and provide them with the right products and services to suit their needs..
Although it should be standard procedure, sometimes we fail to actually ask for the sale. If you don’t, many of your competitors probably will. So I’ve listed some tips to help you during the sales process.
When is comes to asking for business there are many ways to do it. I’ll run through 3 key techniques:
- The direct close
- The indirect close
- The assumptive close
You may have to try a few of these out to see which one you have the most success with.
The direct close
This is where you actually ask for the sale or the order. For instance you may say, “Would you like to place an order?” or “Should we get the product ready for tomorrow?” or “How many do you need?”
The indirect close
There is a slightly different approach with the indirect close. This is where you summarise the benefits and re-state these and then ask for a decision. For example, “Now that you are familiar with how product X can help you solve Y and Z, how do you feel about the payment terms? Or another might be, how does this agreement look to you, does it sound reasonable?
The assumptive close
This approach is a favourite for many sales people, where it assumes that the customer has made the decision to buy your product. Rather than asking the customer for an order, you ask them to commit to getting the service started or goods delivered. For example, “if you need it delivered next week, I will need the order from you by tomorrow at the latest” or, “when would you need it to be delivered?” Or “when do you need to get started?”
There are many questioning techniques that are used to help close a sale but the truth is there are no magic words to ensure success. You must start by helping the customer identify his or her needs and then demonstrate how your product or service offers a solution that fits those needs, try some of these techniques and see which works best for you. Remember to always take a customer centric approach.
Good luck.