Sales is an important part of any business.
Whether you’re closing a deal face-to-face or you want your client to proceed to checkout online, there’s always pressure when it comes to closing a deal or a sale.
But I come bearing great news! With the right steps, confidence, and a never back down attitude it’s all a piece of cake (for the most part).
I’m going to reveal a few secrets I’ve learnt along the way that might help you as well. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Here are the 4 steps
If you’re closing a deal face-to-face, always make sure you come up with a rough idea of the steps you’re going to take.
It’s almost like you’re rehearsing your lines for a show. Go through multiple scenarios in your head.
When you formulate your steps, these are the main things you need to keep in mind.
- Know what you’re selling: As obvious as it sounds, most people don’t take the time to understand the product they sell and how it compares to their competitors.
Even if you know everything about your product, always present it in simple terms. If you are able to understand your product, chances are that your client or customer will understand it too.
- Understand your audience: It’s important to know who you’re talking to.
You can always do a quick background check on the client and understand who they are. But if you’re working in a walk-in showroom you need to be quick (think Sherlock quick) to deduce your customer and understand who they are.
This comes with practice.
Take your time and master the art of deduction.
- Be honest: I think the worst-case scenario for any one is, “Will the client ask me questions I cannot answer?”
There is a simple response to that. Just be honest and say you will look it up and get back to them. The majority of clients are not stupid, so they know how to tell when you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Bottom line; your parents were right. Lying is bad.
- Know when to stop: If the client is settled and already on the verge of buying the service/product. You don’t need to keep giving them more options. Just close the deal and send your customer off.
Same goes for online sales. If your customer has already browsed and selected an item. You don’t need to show them other options on the checkout page. When you do this you risk taking the client away from the sales page and potentially losing the sale.
Know when to stop.
Confidence
What is confidence?
Venus Williams, the great tennis player sums this up for me best. ‘You have to believe in yourself when no one else does—that makes you a winner right there.’
That’s what I believe confidence is. You just need to believe in yourself. Because the moment you start believing that you can do things, that’s when the magic happens. That’s when you don’t stop giving up. You won’t feel discouraged even if you get rejected 100 times, you’ll always push to get that 1 sale.
This is basically the first step to getting to that never back down stage and it’s not just a personal pep talk. It’s contagious because your confidence will push your client to have confidence in you.
They will trust you and they will believe in you, which means they will believe in your product by extension. You know what that means? They’re more likely to buy or invest in you.
Always remember, the way you talk, walk, or smile matters. In some industries or sectors it’s all in the way you dress. You have to make everything count.
It’s a lot of work, but after all that effort you’ll come out on top.
The never back down attitude
This is by far the most self-explanatory.
Just because you get rejected 10 times doesn’t mean it’s time to give up.
Just because you think your client is difficult to deal with, don’t throw in the towel. You find out how to deal with the client and turn it around.
Just because you don’t believe in yourself does not mean you can use that as an excuse. You keep trying, you keep learning and you keep moving forward. You train your brain to take in all that negativity and focus it all out on reaching your goals.
That’s all there is to it
Closing a deal depends on how passionate you are about being successful. “Success” is different for everyone. You have to find out what success means to you and stop at nothing to achieve that goal.
The moment you understand how much you want it, you develop your own selling technique. Learning more and honing your skills will come to you naturally after that.
That doesn’t mean everything will always go your way once you know how badly you want to succeed. But it does mean that you’ll start owning your choices and the consequences of those choices as well. You’ll have to go through days you just don’t want to get out of bed. But fight it.
To quote a good friend and mentor, “You have to want success as much as you want to breathe.”
Imagine being in the middle of the ocean. You hold your breath and go underwater and it reaches that point where your body craves air and is fighting to go back up. That’s the feeling you need to remember. That point where you are on the verge of drowning and almost out of the water—that’s where success lies.