Trouble With Closing Sales? You May Be Making These Mistakes
There’s nothing worse than coming to the end of a long, exhausting sales process and hearing the word ‘no’. Ask any salesperson what the trickiest part of their job is, and the majority will tell you the same thing: closing.
Tired of losing out on great leads? Review your approach and look out for these 3 common mistakes and improve your performance with these effective sales closing techniques.
1. You haven’t understood what your customer needs
We’ve all left sales meetings wondering: what went wrong? My pitch was perfect, my knowledge comprehensive.
But, did you really understand what your customer was looking for?
What to do
Listen.
We can be so keen to dive straight in when talking to customers. We’re enthusiastic, we’re prepared. We’re so sure we can help that we start solving problems before we’ve heard the customer explain their actual problems in their own words.
Your first job is not to present information. It’s to listen. This applies as much to cold calling as it does to face-to-face sales pitch. Hearing a prospect open up and describe the issues their business faces gives us two crucial opportunities.
First, the opportunity to empathise and continue to develop a personal relationship.
Second, the opportunity to tailor an exact solution to those problems, so you can focus on the true benefits of your product or service instead of getting bogged down in features that don’t make an emotional connection with your prospect.
2. You’re stuck on ‘selling tactics’
They’ve stood the test of time. So why wouldn’t these tactics be working now?
The trouble is, selling has changed. Prospective clients can sense old-fashioned sales tactics from a mile off. And nothing kills rapport and trust like a blatant sales pitch. As soon as your potential customer realises that you’re trying to put the sell on them, you can lose the relationship you’ve worked so hard to build.
What to do
One of the best closing strategies for sales is to focus on further developing the relationship between you and your customer. In fact, stop seeing them as a customer: see them as a person with a problem. A problem for which you have the solution. Where tactics build resistance, concentrating on the customer builds personal relationships that lead to sales. People buy from people. Your customers will buy from you, not from a sales tactic you’ve shoehorned into your process.
3. You’re too focused on closing
That time-old sales mantra ABC – Always Be Closing – repeats in your head every day. How can this be a bad thing?
Of course you’re focused on closing sales. You take your targets seriously and you want to climb that league table on the office whiteboard. You know that more closed deals lead to happier bosses and greater confidence from colleagues and referral partners alike (not to mention that nice bump in commission). But, as we touched on above, over-selling to a prospect can be off-putting and lead to less confirmed business. How can you rein it in while still closing the sale?
What to do
View yourself as a problem solver, not a salesperson. We’ve already established that your prospect has an issue for which you have the remedy. Understanding their buying process and fixing the problems they face along the way leads to customers who trust you and will turn to you again and again.
Business equipment leasing is a great example of this. Developing businesses of all sizes have a problem that you can help with – resource and cashflow. Leasing allows them to invest in the solution they need for the business without tying up valuable working capital. Plus, it gives them predictable expenditure. Solving issues for businesses as they grow leads to great relationships, and higher customer lifetime value.
Listening (regularly, not just at the start of the sales process) can help you establish qualified leads that turn into quick, confirmed sales, and also identify opportunities for deals as their business grows.
Our approved suppliers get access to free, tailored, finance-sales training programmes which help to help maximise sales. To find out more visit Lead with Lease.
Key takeaways
- Listen to your customer’s needs and look for ways your products can help them now and in the future
- Ask yourself: When speaking to clients, is what I’m saying focusing on a relationship or focused on selling?
- Focus more on fixing and less on closing – identify the customer’s problem or pain point and remove it
