September 2008
Trust Tip 20: Stop Closing the Sale
by Charles H. Green on Monday, November 20, 2006 (post #20)
For those of you in business development and sales, what would you say is the most important aspect of that process?
Here’s what the market thinks. Or, at least what Amazon’s search algorithm produces when the word “sales” is linked to a related term:
Sales 302,410
Sales price 24,969
Sales pitch 11,797
Sales meeting 5,608
Sales close 5,390
Sales leads 5,270
Sales buyer 4,756
Sales quality 4,616
Sales presentation 4,610
Sales decision 3,041
Sales qualify 691
Sales screen 597
I’ll talk another time about the issue of price. (Doncha love how sales “pitches” get mentioned nearly three times as much as “presentations?”).
Let's focus on closing—clearly a big deal to people who must persuade others for a living. What’s the relationship of trust to closing?
Here it is:
If you stop trying to close, you’ll build trust. And you’ll close more.
And yes, that’s a paradox. So is much of life. Here’s why it works.
First, why do you want to “close” the deal? The usual answers are:
a. to get my sale now
b. because if they leave, they won’t come back
c. because they need that little “push” to make a decision
d. because closing uncovers objections that need to be overcome.
The first reason is selfish and will reduce trust; you deserve a “no” if that’s all you’re up to, because it’s manipulative.
The second is only a disguised version of the first.
The third infantilizes the customer; fine for the emotionally needy, not for most competent buyers.
The fourth—to identify and overcome objections—is the most serious. It comes from a belief that buying is about rational decision-making.
If they haven’t bought, so the logic goes, there must be a reason. If I can uncover the reason, I will remove the blockage to their buying. Repeated attempts to close (the ABC rule, Always Be Closing) make sense based on this logic. And it doesn’t have to be manipulative.
But it’s still not quite right. As Jeffrey Gitomer puts it, “the buying decision is made emotionally, and justified rationally.” Lawyers, consultants and accountants think this doesn’t apply to their clients, but it most often does.
When buyers buy, it isn’t because their objections have been met; it’s because they’ve gotten comfortable with the decision. And the chief road to comfort is not through a rational litany of point-counterpoint, but through a human process of being listened to, clarifying issues, and envisioning outcomes.
Which late-discussion question do you think is better?
1. Are you ready to buy now?
2. What would you like to do now?
The first question, whether you say it that way or use similar words, is what’s usually called closing. It’s ultimately all about you, the seller. And the customer knows it.
The second question, whether you say it that way or use similar words, is all about the customer. The subtext says “the timing is yours, the next steps are yours—I’m here to be of help to you. What do you want to do?”
The second question isn’t “closing.” But it closes better than the first question.
And that’s the paradox.
Charles H. Green, author of Trust-Based Selling and co-author of The Trusted Advisor, is a consultant and speaker on trust issues for some of the world's best companies. He has written about trust in business relationships at Trust Matters since 2006. Read more...
posted in Building Trusted Advisors, Trust-based Selling
steve smith said
http://www.egonomicsbook.com
Charles,
Thanks for your post on "closing" the sale. I bought a car this weekend, and the person I bought it from had ZERO closing techniques. She simply tried to help me make an informed decision, even lending me her computer to do research on Edmunds.com. She had nothing to hide.
It's a hard lesson to comprehend, especially the less experienced you are. I think before anyone would buy a more client-first approach to business, they would need to ask an ironic question; what’s in it for me? I think the ironic answer is that the less we focus on our needs first, the more likely our needs will be met.
For example, if you’re a salesperson for IBM (or any company), in a high-performance culture, the pressure is on. Like every salesperson, you have a monthly quota. Hitting your quota could mean many things: commission, promotion, reputation, college tuition, weddings, house payments, retirement, and so on. With that pressure, you have a sales presentation to make on a several-hundred-thousand-dollar proposal. If you walk into that meeting and begin making your presentation with your focus first and foremost on your needs—to hit your numbers and get your commission—are you more or less likely to make the sale? I think less likely.
As soon as the client senses a me-first intent from you, that intent taints the interaction on both sides. You may oversell product features, rush through a technical explanation, mistake understanding for agreement and enthusiasm, smooth over objections, or push too hard for the close. As the client feels your intent, they grow suspicious of what you say, become guarded about what they say, and don’t give you access to information or people they otherwise would. In turn, their trust in you goes down, you lose the sale and your company loses the revenue. In fact, maybe you have a better product than your competitors, and the client loses the economic benefit of not getting the best solution. Everybody loses.
In sales, the more important it is to meet your numbers, the more important it is to forget about your numbers and help clients meet their numbers.
Anyway, thanks for your good work and thoughts.
Steve
posted on Monday, November 20, 2006