Prospects will sometimes drag their feet or take too long to make up their mind; but, although this is infuriating, it must not cause us to despair of ever getting to the end.
Many closing techniques are available to a salesperson that will help you close more sales, gain more revenue and grow your business, such as : the something for nothing close and summary closes.
Mirroring Technique
If you can emulate your customer’s style of communication and body language, you’ll create an instant bond, and with that bond comes the ability to sell more. Matching the breathing rate, posture or gesture of your customer is called sales mirroring, and it’s an unconscious level of rapport. If your customer takes deeper breaths to calm a knee-jerk reaction to a negative aspect of a sale, by matching that breathing style, your customer will get the feeling of familiarity – a feeling that’s almost automatic. Customers who feel a sense of familiarity are more likely to trust you and, with trust comes the ability to tell the customer things they don’t really want to hear, it also makes closing a deal easier. Creating bonds of familiarity is essential in sales. Not only do your customers have to listen to your suggestions, they might have to be comfortable with the terms of a deal from your office.
With any tool, though, this one has to be used carefully. Being too openly mirror-roboxing can give the customer the impression that you’re manipulating them. Being used sparingly is a signal of subtlety, and helps you avoid mirroring certain identifying traits or mistakes that might come back to bite you; crossing your arms or looking away can be read as signals of your distrust as a salesperson, so avoid them by being subtle with mirror-roboxing.
Creating a Sense of Urgency
If your strategy is to close a sale, one of your key tasks will be to ‘prime’ your prospect for action. This can be done by pointing out that time constraints or special offers are available only until a certain point in time.
The goal of the Now or Never Close is to urge customers to make their decision quickly, “before they can change their mind” or “before it is too late”. The technique is likely to help induce buyer’s remorse, while at the same time reviving waverers’ eagerness to make this purchase right now.
The Benjamin Franklin closing technique takes the same principle of the Now or Never Close and has customers list out both the benefits and the drawbacks of the product or service you’re selling. Sometimes this pushy tactic can work, but you have to be careful with it since it’s often seen as a high-pressure sales technique, and it works only in certain circumstances — typically when your prospect has a glaring pain point that needs to be solved.
Asking the Right Questions
As a key part of your sales technique, questioning potential customers (eg ‘How would this product affect your business?’) will help gather useful information ahead of a sale to help you close the deal.
This open-ended question forces them to formulate their value proposition and also helps you differentiate between their stated needs and conditions (eg ‘It’s too expensive’) that could preclude sales.
Assumptive Close is one of the most effective closing techniques – your solution satisfies everything they need, and cuts through their resistance to committing. If a prospect believes your assumption is false – perhaps it does not satisfy their needs tightly enough – this could muddy up the deal with suspicion. Never assume anything false.
Creating a Plan of Action
Deals are closed only if you know what your prospect wants, needs and expects from you. Therefore, your closing success differs depending on the appropriate moment and the individual customer.
Summary closing is the short summative statement about your product at the end of the presentation that provides a summary of the product’s key features and advantages in order to reiterate your value proposition to prospects who might still be struggling to understand the value of your product in the first place.
The now-or-never close plays on the guilt of prospects who worry that they might be making the wrong decision. If doubts about price or quality are holding hesitant prospects back from making a commitment, parading them in front of a visible close can lead them towards saying ‘yes’. To make the now-or-never close work, stress that your product or service won’t be around forever, and add in some kind of discount offer or VIP features that could convince action-minded prospects to act more quickly.
