Your favorite close

Several weeks ago, I was speaking with Jay Hellwig. Jay is a top sales professional. Jay said, “Zig Ziglar’s CD’s on ‘Secrets of Closing the Sale‘ are my favorite CD’s.” Since there are over 50 specific closing techniques in this CD set, I asked Jay what was his favorite technique.

Jay thought for a moment and said, “Oh, I don’t have a favorite close.” I asked, “Then how can it be your favorite sales training set?” Jay said, “That’s easy. Zig didn’t teach me a closing technique as much as he taught me a closing ATTITUDE! The attitude helps me close more sales than the techniques do.”

A closing attitude. Now, that’s powerful.

Have you thought about your CLOSING ATTITUDE lately? Do you have closing attitude? And if you do, what type attitude is it?

Jay is right. The way you feel about closing the order is oftentimes more important than the technique you use. You probably have a number of strong closes. However, if you lack a strong closing attitude, you will never use those closing techniques.

What is your attitude about closing? Selling is what we do WITH your prospect, not something we do TO your prospect. Closing should be the logical conclusion to your selling activities. It should not be the stage of the sales process that is adversarial between the seller and the buyer. The buyer should be as eager for this stage as the seller is.

What is your attitude toward closing? Why do you ask people to buy from you? You ask people to buy from you so that you can feed your family… not your ego. If you don’t want to bruise your ego, you may be hesitant to ask for the order. However, if you do that enough times, you are not putting bread on your family’s table.

What happens when you ask for the order and you get it? You win! But, what happens when you ask for the order and you don’t get it? Well, you don’t lose! You break even! That’s right … you break even. You can’t lose by doing your job.

Your job is to ask people to exchange money for your services. When you do your job correctly you have every right to ask the business owner to buy from you.

When you ask the prospect to purchase from you today, the buyer wants to know that you believe his/her decision is a solid one. You can assist with this if you have a positive closing attitude. You need to exhibit confidence during this stage of the process. If you do, you will be able to expect sales success, not hope for sales success.

Jay Hellwig is right. The closing attitude will close more sales than the techniques!

Good luck and good selling!
__________
Bryan Flanagan is a nationally renowned speaker, author and sales trainer. A performance consultant and coach for dozens of corporations, Bryan knows and communicates the techniques that help people become better performers! Visit him at www.FlanaganTraining.com

Dress

Make sure you are dressed appropriately for the work you do.  Now in the office everyone might be in business casual, but if your clients are not, then you're not.  The rule of thumb i tell my staff is accurate for all business occasions, internal or external.  Be one step up from those around you.  If everyone is wearing slacks and a polo, the be in a button down.  if they are in a button down, throw on a jacket or tie.  now if everyone is in a nice suit and tie, you dont need to go to tux, but maybe 3 piece?  Outside of the tux, its hard to go too high, but very easy to go too low.

dress for the part you want is a good internal meeting thought process.  if you see that at business casual meetings that the vp's are wearing a jacket, next time, wear a jacket.

you get the idea.

Sales is more than just pushing product.  its selling yourself too.

Contact sport

Sales is a contact sport

I am sure we have all heard this before, “In sales, you must contact as many people as possible to be successful.”  This is certainly important, but part of that mantra is contacting the right people, the other part is knowing what you are going to say.  Is the call looking to cold call and sell something or is it the kind that is going to concentrate on deepening a relationship?  Both have their places.

Developing the relationship

If you are developing a relationship, make sure you call or email and mention nothing about sales most of the time.  You will want the impact of you having an idea or desire to sell something not to be the expectation when you call.  Your relationship will not blossom if they cringe at the site of your number on their caller ID.

I’m calling to sell you something

Make sure you have a connection of some sort to the person you are calling.  Try and get a referral.  If you are calling dead cold, you need to make an impact in the first 2 sentences or your call is over.  You will have to assume what the benefit is for the prospect before the call, so some industry knowledge or research will be important.

It’s not just the phone

You cannot win at the contact sport of sales with just the phone and email.  You will need to use your network, both physical network  and your virtual one.  In person meetings work as well, but don’t forget to embrace the preferences of those you are targeting and adjust accordingly.

How much is enough?

You have to develop your own sales ratio, but if you want a place to start, in his book, “Never Eat Alone”, Keith Ferrazzi says you will not be successful in sales unless you talk to 50 people per day.

Are you talking to enough and is the conversation the best quality it can be?

Remember:

Results = Quantity of contacts x quality of the interactions x the right customer.

Sales is a contact sportI am sure we have all heard this before, “In sales, you must contact as many people as possible to be successful.”  This is certainly important, but part of that mantra is contacting the right people, the other part is knowing what you are going to say.  Is the call looking to cold call and sell something or is it the kind that is going to concentrate on deepening a relationship?  Both have their places. Developing the relationship  If you are developing a relationship, make sure you call or email and mention nothing about sales most of the time.  You will want the impact of you having an idea or desire to sell something not to be the expectation when you call.  Your relationship will not blossom if they cringe at the site of your number on their caller ID.I’m calling to sell you something Make sure you have a connection of some sort to the person you are calling.  Try and get a referral.  If you are calling dead cold, you need to make an impact in the first 2 sentences or your call is over.  You will have to assume what the benefit is for the prospect before the call, so some industry knowledge or research will be important.It’s not just the phone You cannot win at the contact sport of sales with just the phone and email.  You will need to use your network, both physical network  and your virtual one.  In person meetings work as well, but don’t forget to embrace the preferences of those you are targeting and adjust accordingly.How much is enough?  You have to develop your own sales ratio, but if you want a place to start, in his book, “Never Eat Alone”, Keith Ferrazzi says you will not be successful in sales unless you talk to 50 people per day.

Are you talking to enough and is the conversation the best quality it can be?Remember:

Results = Quantity of contacts x quality of the interactions x the right customer.

Great sellers know their closing ratio and build relationships.

Great Sellers tip of the day - Thank you

When was the last time you sent your good clients a handwritten thank you note?  I said, "good" for a reason because you have probably done something for your great clients, but what about your bread and butter clients?

why handwritten?  everything from the envelope to the letter inside needs to be handwritten for one reason - it will get read.  Thats right, why a pour good, well thought out message just ot have it trashed.  how do i know it will end up in the garbage?  It will end up there because you do the same thing.  remember that birthday card you got form your insurance company?  you know the one with a nice message, and maybe signed?  did it mean anything to you?  nope?  me either.  However i recently sent a handful of the handwritten thank you notes out to a few clients i see frequently to see if they would notice.  100% of them said something to me in the next 2 weeks about it.

so what did my note say?

each was different, but something to the effect of:

Dear _____ (i used their 1st names)
I just wanted to write to you just to say thank you.  Its not often that i take the time just to say thank you to my best clients.  So, Thank you for the trust you put in me and the relationship we share.

again, thank you

Ryan

You will notice that i did not put anything in about sending me referrals or that i had some new product to sell them.  My message was very clear, that I appreciated their business.

Do your good, or even your great clients know that you appreciate them?

Great selling starts with great sellers who do the things no one else is doing

Great Sellers tip of the week - Elephant Hunting, or know your 3

Know your 3. What I mean is know the 3 big businesses you want to land, the elephants. These will be high impact-to-your-sales-goal type businesses. Of these three you may only get 1 or even none, but if you don’t have targets you don’t know how to aim. So pick 3 businesses you really want to get into and know why you want them. Set a plan on how you will try and contact the owner. The objective in the beginning is to get an appointment with a decision maker. Who do you know that might know the right person? Have you checked reference USA or Linked-in to see if you have any useful information there? Do any of your current clients or networking contacts have a contact to help you? Would anyone mind writing you a business letter of reference to help you establish why they should do business with you? Track your plan and adjust it as necessary. You can land that big client; you just have to make sure it’s not by chance.

You cannot spend all your time elephant hunting, but the 3 you pick should be worth it to you.  They can be year long or longer projects.  Just getting to the right person is time consuming enough.  I know I am making this seem like a huge process but its not.  Just identify the target and do a little research.  Be prepared for a long journey, but also be just as prepared if someone asks you a closing lead-in question.  Is does have to take long, but it probably will.

Great Sellers can sell to top clients, medium clients, and entry level clients.

Great Sellers tip of the day - SHUTUP

yep, thats right, shut-up.  As sales people we tend to be very extroverted, and forget that others have the control.  if we are trying to close a sale we need to shut-up for a few seconds to let the prospect answer our questions and to ask their own.  I am personally one of these people that cannot stop talking.  in meetings i purposly tell myself to shut up.  i know the answers to the questions and want to just move things along.

in the sale process the same thing can happen.  youre working with a particular person or industry person and you know already, more than likely better than they do, what they need.  So, no reason to beat around the bush, just show them how much you know about their job and then close in for the sale right?

wrong

you have to remember that although you sell it all day long the buyer doesnt buy it all day long.  The more involved the prospect feels in coming up with the solution (buying what youre selling) the more likely they will actually do it.  Kind of like leading your boss to come up with the answer you already had, its much better cause he/she thought of it.

So slow down and shut up.  You wont sell more, but you will close more and thats becoming a great seller

quote of the day - insanity

Paraphrasing Mr Einstein

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

How does this play into sales?  If you are not getting the results you are looking for why do you keep doing the same activities.  Make a change, either major or minor, but dont keep doing the same things in the same ways.  if you are a route person, go backwards through the route.  if you normally call in the mornings, call in the afternoon.  If you usually hold your employees one on ones on Friday, make it Wednesday.

Like exercising, you need to change the workout to make it effective.

Do something today, just do it different

Great Sellers are not set in their ways.

Great Sellers Tip of the Day - step away

Its important for anyone who is selling for a living or for money that they take a day here and there to mentally take a step back and allow the selling part of your brain to take a day off.  just like most things in life you will run out of energy if you dont let up every once in a while.

Even if its mowing the lawn or doing home chores, stop thinking about the next sale or the next appointment.  I highly recommend exercise.  I am currently doing p90x, but the type of exercise you get isnt important but doing something to let your body and mind get that stress out is important.

Great Sellers take great care of themselves too

Great Sellers Tip of the Week - Contact Sport

I am sure we have all heard this before, “In sales, you must contact as many people as possible to be successful.”  This is certainly important, but part of that mantra is contacting the right people, the other part is knowing what you are going to say.  Are you a person who is looking to cold call and sell something or are you the kind that is going to concentrate on deepening  a relationship?  Both have their places.

Developing the relationship.
If you are developing a relationship, make sure you call or email and mention nothing about sales most of the time.  You will want the impact of you having an idea or desire to sell something not to be the expectation when you call.  Your relationship will not blossom if they cringe at the site of your number on their caller ID.

I’m calling to sell you something
Make sure you have a connection of some sort to the person you are calling.  try and get a referral.  If you are calling dead cold, you need to make an impact in the first 2 sentences or your call is over.  You will have to assume what the benefit is for the prospect before the cal, so some industry knowledge or research will be important.

It’s not just the phone
You cannot win at the contact sport of sales with just the phone and email.  You will need to use your network, both physical network  and your virtual one.  In person meetings work as well, but don’t forget to embrace the preferences of those you are targeting and adjust accordingly.
How much is enough?  You have to develop your own sales ratio, but if you want a place to start, in his book, “Never Eat Alone”, Keith Ferrazzi says you will not be successful in sales unless you talk to 50 people per day.

Great Sellers Recommended Reading - Switch

I wanted to take a few moments to give you my impression of "Switch".  Many people may not see the connection to this book for selling.  Understand what makes people choose is an important piece of the sales puzzle.

You can read all the "wedge technique" or benefit statements rationale, but if you don't understand why people make the choices they do then you are really missing out.

The book is easy to understand and a fascinating look at society in general.  I have used this in sales as well as the sales coaching I do with my team