78. Does the customer expect you to close?
The professional KNOWS that it never pays to leave business on the table. You know that to permit the buyer to defer the close, is to leave the sale open for a competitor to come in and harvest the crop that you worked so hard to grow.
The sales person who has polished the technique of closing to professional brilliance knows the fundamental difference between so-called "high pressure" selling and "low pressure". You know the value of intelligent, dramatic, forceful, suggestive closing when you feel in your heart you are rendering a great service by helping the buyer to decide something for the buyer's own good.
You are in a stronger position because you have the advantage of working with an organized plan and objective. After all, every sale is a contest, starting with two strikes on the buyer, because you have the advantage of working with an organized plan and an objective toward which you are steering him or her. The buyer is in the weak position of a follower on the defensive.
The professional has learned by sad experience that failure to close, to permit the decision to be deferred lets the prospect get cold, when they might have been sold by the application of a quiet, smooth-running, graceful closing technique ...
The buyer expects you to close. How do you go about it to polish the close you are now using? The first step is to get a better understanding of what takes place in the mind of the buyer during the closing moments. Since calling on this account you have been developing an IDEA. You have been supporting this IDEA with your sales points, the effect of your personality, the appeal of your products or service, the price, the terms.
This is the time to GIVE HIM OR HER A DELICATE, SUGGESTIVE PUSH toward the order. You have taken him to "a future place" on the magic carpet of imaginary possession, you've held him there with convincing proof. You have answered the last objection. It is time to do what the buyer expects you to do.
After you ask for the order, sliently say to yourself "today's the day!" And your expectations about making the sale and closing the customer will increase.
Here's the story behind the three prowerful words.
On October 6, 1622, a heavily loaded ship belonging to King Philip IV's fleet struck a reef in a sever storm near the Florida Keys. Nearly 300 people lost their lives, and tons of gold, silver, and other precious cargo went to the bottom of the ocean floor.
Finding sunken treasure had been the life long dream of Mel Fisher. And this treasure from the sunken Spanish ship, Nuestra Senora de Atocha, was the one he wanted to find. To secure financing for his venture Mel had to look into the eyes of doubtful investors and persuade them to believe as he believed - that he and his crew could find the sunken treasure.
Every day for SEVENTEEN YEARS Mel would be on the phone to his investors as well as convincing his crew to keep believing in him and the remote possibility that they would find the sunken treasure. Every day he would say the same thing to his investors and to his crew: "Today's the day." "Today's the day."
For seventeen years he did this while his crew criss-crossed the search area, studying the charts, consulting 16th century information and logs, trying one thing and then another, changing strategies as needed and gathering what little knowledge they could from their hundreds and hundreds of ocean-bottom explorations. It was frustrating, discouraging and nearly impossible to get accurate information. But, again and again, day after day, Mel would be on the phone to his investors or encouraging his crew that "Today's the day."
Then, one morning, after all those years of searching and learning and heartbreak, after all those years of begging for funds and pleading with people to believe in his "outrageous" dream, the words came back from the boat: TODAY'S THE DAY!! TODAY IS THE DAY! WE FOUND IT! WE FOUND IT!! IT'S ALL THERE!!!
This incredible story of persistence is one that can inspire us all. Those three words are what you, an independent business owner and/or sales person, believe. Those three words are what keep you going. Today's the day!. Today's the day I get the order!
Comments:
Some customers do not want to drag on and agonize over business decisions. They want to make their decision and then move on to the next problem/crisis. Others are tentative and do not have the confidence to initiate a close to a deal so you have to make it happen. I always worry about the tentative ones so as soon as I get the order signed I leave. If you sit around talking, buyer’s remorse can mess up the deal
Crocker Smith
There is tactful, and then there is distasteful. Which we will choose to be? We can be mildly persistant, but we usually know when it is not our day.
Kimberly Burgess
There are some people that cannot be closed no matter what, so while going in with the attitude that it is your day to get the order, we also have to go after that order/close in a non-aggressive manner. Usually, a friendly way to see where I stand is a simple question like “is there anything preventing you from doing business today?” Put the ball in their court to give you their objections – which we then knock off one by one and then again try to get the order.
I always want to leave the customer with the feeling that I am offering them a service that they need, not trying to sell them the last lemon on the lot.
Danielle Antonacci
It seems like a movie. The screen writer has introduced you to the characters , developed the story line , taken you on a roller coaster ride of emotion and intrigue and if he or she fails to bring it all together at the end of the movie you walk away with a let down and a negative opinion of that movie. The audience expects a proper conclusion ………….even demands it.
Alex McQueen
A great example of the difference between "persistence" and "pressure"
I just got a call from Sam’s Club. I am a Chamber member and have been asked and asked and asked if I would buy a company or personal Sam’s Club Card. My answer was always the same, I am a single mom of three goldens, and my staffing coordinator has a card if we need it for office use.
WELL – the salesperson on the other phone must have thought TODAY WAS HER DAY because I told her my usual response, then told her that a person from the Chamber had marketed to me many times, basically told her I was divorced and barely making enough to live on (of course I worded it differently) then, she STILL told me about the wonderful traveling advantages of the card at hotels and traveling,, etc… finally she even had the nerve to ask me how much I pay for tire rotations because I could get a better deal at Sam’s.
After the phone call I felt like I had to defend every answer and come up with an excuse that she approved of, and she even “made” me explain what kind of dog food my three dogs eat. When I got off the phone I felt exhausted and like I had been given the third degree.
I learned that WHEN IT”S NOT YOUR DAY – let it go and try another day.
Angela Brewer
"You know the value of intelligent, dramatic, forceful, suggestive closing when you feel in your heart you are rendering a great service by helping the buyer to decide something for the buyer's own good. The customer expects it."