Closing The Sale: Salespeople’s Choices Are The Key

The More Information Sales People Have About What Affects The Prospects Perceptions Of Value, The Better The Choices They Can Make To Close The Sale

Closing the sale comes down to the choices salespeople make when they are conversing with the customer. As they go through their sales process, they make choices about what they do next based on what they know about the customer, what they think they need to know and what they feel will help close the sale.

A Closing The Sale Choice

Sometimes, those sales growth choices are based on false assumptions, not listening carefully enough, not asking enough questions, not interpreting what they hear correctly and not being curious enough about the customer. They might feel more comfortable talking about what they know… their offer and its benefits… than actually finding out all that the customer thinks and feels. To boost sales growth, you have to get deep inside the customer’s mind.

Salespeople make choices to help close the sale based on all they know at that moment in time. If they knew more, they would make different choices about what they do next. If they knew everything that actually affects closing the sale, they might change a lot of their choices about what they do.

Salespeople Boost Sales Growth By Making Better Choices

A salesperson’s choices have more affect on whether they close the sale than their communication techniques. When those choices are based on why people buy and how they figure out perceived value, salespeople make choices that help customers justify a purchase decision and see a high enough value to pay a profitable price.

These are conscious choices salespeople can make that grow out of a deeper understanding about what actually affects the customer’s decision to buy. Closing the sale requires in-depth knowledge about the customers needs and wants, what they consider important and unimportant, what they would highly value and everything affecting them. To close the sale, salespeople have to figure out how to use all that information to influence the customer’s perceptions of value.

Every sale happens inside the mind of the customer. What that customer thinks about, how they view their situation, what they consider important and unimportant, and much more all contribute to how they see the offer and the company offering it. The more a salesperson knows about what is going on inside the customer’s mind, the more likely they are to make choices that will produce sales growth. Whatever they don’t know about the customer can and will sabotage the sale.

The Customer’s Mind

Salespeople Know Less About Customers Than They Think They Know

Our research shows that, on average, experienced and trained salespeople know about 75% of the available information that could influence the customer’s purchase decision. Yet, they are often unaware that their knowledge of the customer is 25% less than it could be. How can we get salespeople to consistently seek out more information that can help them with closing the sale?

What salespeople need is a guidance system that leads them to seek out more information from the customer, determine when the information is sufficient to move the sale forward and use that information to close the sale. By learning why people buy, what affects their customers’ buying decisions and how they figure out perceived value, salespeople become motivated to seek out more information that will boost their sales growth.

How A Guidance System Helps Salespeople Close The Sale

When salespeople seek out the maximum possible information from the customer to help guide them toward a purchase decision, they do the following:

• Listen better
• Interpret what they hear better
• Avoid costly assumptions
• Become more curious about what the customer thinks
• Develop deeper relationships with more people

This leads salespeople to do the following five things that will cause more customers to say yes more often at profitable prices.

1. Increase the number of needs and wants uncovered
2. Raise how serious and compelling those needs and wants are
3. Present solutions that more closely align with the customer
4. Raise how important the customer ranks each benefit
5. Increase the perceived value of what is offered

When salespeople do all five to the max, they close more sales, increase their win rates, penetrate deeper into existing accounts, retain more customers, and increase referrals to new prospects. They boost their sales growth.

“Closing the sale is about the entire sales process, not just the end of the process. It isn’t any one thing a salesperson does that makes the difference in closing the sale. It’s everything they do that makes the difference. Closing the sale starts with the first contact and proceeds through every conversation and information exchange until the salesperson has poured a strong enough foundation for the customer to say yes.” Don Shapiro, President, First Concepts Consultants, Inc.

View Don Shapiro’s Speakers Brochure with Video about Making The Value Visible

Questions?

Schedule a phone conversation with Don Shapiro, President of First Concepts Consultants, Inc., to answer your questions and explore how a deeper understanding about why people buy and how they figure out value could  boost your salespeople’s closing rate. Don Shapiro has been educating and inspiring salespeople with his speeches, seminars and training program Close More Sales for over 27 years.

More Information

White Paper: Why People Buy

Learn some of the conclusions from Don Shapiro’s three decades of research into why people buy and what affects their purchase decisions based on his observing hundreds of salespeople and having over 3000 salespeople call on him.

Customer Value…The Ultimate Path To The Best Strategies, Products And Services

Defines what customer value is and how it can help any company to increase its sales, margins and market share. When a business becomes truly customer driven then customer value unifies everything it does.

Video: Hidden Customer Value, Pricing And Margins

Revenue Detective Don Shapiro, President of First Concepts, talks about the increasing price and margin pressure many companies are now experiencing and how to address it.

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