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Are you any good at Closing deals?  Do you know anyone who is a so called ‘closing guru’? These people are highly sought after!

Most businesses recruiting a sales person will spend their time (and often big money) on head hunting or sourcing a ‘good closer’.

Company sales teams will invest their staff training budget on sales training courses that focus on closing skills, believing the art of sales is all about crossing the finish line.

How many of you have been in the situation where you have had a hot lead, followed by a great meeting. Everything sounds good but initial hope of a straight forward sale soon dies as things start to drag on, and on.

Months later you have to pass the account over to the company Closing Guru or Sales Director to get things moving and surprise surprise, even they can’t seal the deal.

There’s frustration, what looked like a dead cert has ‘slipped through the net’. Then blame – surely it’s all the prospects fault, they messed you around, suddenly can’t afford it, put the project on the backburner.

They say they’ll look at it again next year…Great. Everyone’s been there, but it’s madness because it is avoidable.

It is a common misconception that ‘it’s all in the closing’, what is important is qualification.  Hard, aggressive, qualification.

Right from the start - ideally at the initial enquiry/first contact as it quickly gets harder as time goes on. You get sucked in to the account, forming a relationship with the prospect which makes it difficult to ask the tough questions.

Does the person you are dealing with have the authority to approve an order? It’s all too easy to spend time speaking to someone who is desperate to buy your product/service, listening to everything you want to hear, only to find out months later that they were just telling you what you wanted to hear!

Can they really afford the proposed expenditure? Everyone is very good at telling you how great business is and no one wants to admit times are tough.  Again are you being told what you want to hear?

When are they really planning on parting with their cash? They say next month - why next month?  When exactly next month?  Can it slip back?

Why are they interested -  What do they risk if they don’t go ahead? Ideally, your product/services will be imperative for their immediate future business plan. Or are they just checking out what their competition are up to using you...?

They are all fair questions and anyone who is open and honest, or genuinely going to buy from you will have no trouble answering them. Only the tyre kickers will struggle or become offended by direct questioning.  It has to be done though.

The simple truth is that only well qualified accounts will close. If they are not well qualified you will be lucky to close them and let’s face it, no sales person should be relying on luck!

Closing isn’t important. The smartest Sales people qualify hard and very early.

By: John Perrin