Tweet

Do You Always Have Trouble Closing Sales?

Written by: Peter O'Donoghue

Article Overview: Do you sometimes feel like you always have trouble closing? Are you looking for the 'magical' closing question that will close every piece of business. Forget it! Focus at the beginning and closing will just fade away.

Do You Always Have Trouble Closing Sales?

Do You Always Have Trouble Closing Sales?

I was at an event recently and one of the scheduled speakers failed to turn up. Never being short of something to say or a desire to help other business owners I volunteered to do a 10 minute 'open floor.'

When asked what the most pressing sales challenges in the room were, One of the other attendees put his hand up and said:

"Everything else is Fine but I always have trouble closing"

Now this is a statement or question I hear quite a lot. It can be caused because of a number of reasons but I thought we would start at the beginning and asked:

"Do You Truly Believe The Value You Are Offering?"

Matt, the business owner who asked the question looked at me with his eyes down slightly and said "well, yes - kind of"

Bingo!

The first area to take a look at. If you do not truly believe the value you bring to the other person then your confidence, or lack of it will always shine through. How can you clearly demonstrate the value in the other person buying your services if you are not sure yourself?

Speaking to Matt afterward we looked at some of his recent clients. One had openly stated that Matt's software had saved them over £100,000 instantly and would do so every year. Now that is concrete proof to build your confidence on.

Does it matter if Matt charged £500 or £10,000 for his software (i don't know how much he does!) if he can clearly show that he will make the company £100,000 instantly - and that he is the only person that can do.

The trouble was Matt had never taken the step back to really understand the value he was bringing to his clients. You may have fallen into this trap too? Like Matt, you may have been seeking answers from the end of the process i.e 'closing' when in fact you could could make closing simple by focusing on the start od the process.

Related Articles
  The Close
  QuickBooks 2011: Improvement to Closing Date Functionality
  Handling the Greatest Source of Failed Closes
  How to Practice your Closing Sales Skills
  How to Use Inspiration or Desperation to Sell More

Article Tags: attendees, bingo, business owner, business owners, challenges, concrete proof, confidence, desire, speakers



Related Forum Posts
Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing
Re: Online Sales and Marketing vs Traditional - [quote="ltrahan":31w9r2iz]Hi Evan, I am noticing that many of the posts in the Sales/Marketing section deal with online marketing, SEM and and SEO and Affiliates. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to separate that section into two; 1) Online Sales and Marketing; 2) Traditional Sales and Marketing[/quote:31w9r2iz] I second the request...
Re: How did we Live before Electricity - You are right Tim, we are spoiled today with the convenience products we have available.Trouble is once you get used to having these things, it becomes very difficult to imagine life without them. Our ancestors never had them in the first place, so they accepted what they had as they never knew anything different. MichelleJ
enRoute ads - 10 days with my new salesmen - Hi Guys, As some of you may know I hired a sales person for my business. I picked him amongst 50+ interviews, so I did do my due diligence. For any of you who have had experience with outbound sales reps in your company could you please shed some light on these statistics and let me know what you think: Days Employed: 11 Calls Made: 200 Average length of call: 3 minutes Sales: 0 Closing Rate: 0 Previous closing rate at Astral Media: 5% He is selling billboards instead of radio, for an unestablished company vs. an established one There seems to be large gaps in calling made in his daily log, on average he is making 20 calls a day. I am going to try to increase this by providing him with calling lists versus him creating his own. (I will keep you posted on this). I am just wondering, in your experience, what kind of regiment do you have your cold callers work on, 6 hours? 4 hours? 7 hours? And did you notice a curve occur with closing rates as time progressed and experience increased? If so when did you notice this begin to occur, I have him on a 1,500.00 NON-RECOVERABLE sales draw salary which ends in 6 weeks (approx).
Re: How do you budget your life? - Good advice David and something that all parents should teach their children by example from a very early age. Trouble is that many people know they need to budget and save, but they have no idea about how to do it. Like Robert Kiyosaki says, financial intelligence should be taught in school. MichelleJ


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

The Neglected Art of Receiving

What I Really Want Is...

What is Give Back Marketing?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.