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How To Close A Sale

Guest post by: Mike Brooks

Article Overview: If you do these things right, it'll be easy and natural for you to ask for the order often. And when you start doing that, you'll finally know how to close a sale.

How To Close A Sale

I received an email from someone last week that simply said, "I'd like to read about how to close sales in one of your ezines." That was it. That was all the email contained. I resisted the temptation to send back a link to my products page, and after I thought about it a bit I took it as a challenge to put the most important parts of closing a sale into this week's ezine so here they are:

1) Find a buyer. I know that sounds pretty straight forward, but I'll tell you right now, the biggest problem most sales reps have is they stuff unqualified leads into their pipeline and then spend their time and energy chasing unqualified leads that were never going to buy anyway. Here's the point:

You can't close an unqualified lead.

If you don't know how to qualify a lead, then you need to find out how and do it quickly. I've written books, articles and recorded podcasts that show you - step by step, word for word - how to do this, and if you haven't taken advantage of them, then visit my products page:

2) Once you find a buyer, make sure you know exactly what their buying motives and conditions are and then show them how your product or service fits those perfectly.

Again, while this may seem straight forward, you'd be amazed by how many sales reps have no idea what the buying motives are and instead they just throw features and benefits at the prospect hoping that they'll hear something and decide to buy.

More sales are lost (or revenue is lost as sales reps drop prices or quantities prematurely) because the sales rep has never discovered exactly what the real buying motives are.

3) Once you do find a buyer and you know exactly what it's going to take for them to buy, then simply present that to them, ask for the order and shut up and listen.

Not rocket science, is it? And yet, again, you'd be amazed at how most sales reps will talk, talk, talk themselves past the sale or keep talking and introduce objections. It's shameful, really. What to do about it? Use scripts! Know in advance exactly what you're going to say so you'll be able to LISTEN to what your prospect is saying (hint: they are usually trying to tell you how to sell them).

4) Be prepared to handle the common objections and selling situations that are specific to your sale. Quick: name the top 5 objections you get while qualifying and during your closing presentation.

That didn't take very long did it? I'll bet you could name them all in 1 minute. Now, quickly again, pull out the exact scripts you use to overcome them...

Don't have them, do you? That's the problem. See Here for the solution.

5) Lastly, ask for the order often. This is what most sales reps are afraid of doing, and it's because they've done all the above things wrong.

Bottom line: if you do the first four things right, it'll be easy and natural for you to ask for the order often. And when you start doing that, you'll finally know how to close a sale.

Related Articles
  Closing the Sale
  How to Close the Deal Your Salespeople Can't Close
  CLOSING THE SALE - IT'S HIGHLY OVERRATED
  The 5 “Secrets” of closing the sale
  How Well Are You Keeping Your Focus on Increasing Sales?
  How to close the telephone price shopper
  Handling the Greatest Source of Failed Closes
  Help my sales people can’t close sales
  Why You Need A Sales System
  CLOSING - IT WILL MAKE OR BREAK YOU!
  The Ultimate “Closing Technique”
  Sure-Fire Techniques for Closing Sales
  Tips for Closing Business (Part II)
  The Thermometer Close
  Closing the Sale: Assume the Close, But Never the Reason
  Asking For the Money
  Seven Steps to Cold Calling Follow-up
  Direct Sales Strategies: How to Get to the Money and Close the Sale
  Smooth Sailing or Storms Ahead ? How to use the Sales Pipeline to predict your future
  7 Ways To Get To The Truth: When The Sale Disappears

Article Tags: closing sales, closing scripts, closing techniques, cold calling, inside sales, overcoming objections, phone sales, phone sales scripts, phone script, phone scripts, phone scripts examples, prospecting, telephone scripts, telesales



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