Get your prospects out of pain.....Close them

I believe that most of us have shared experiences and similar reactions to those experiences.

I recently had the misfortune of receiving a sales call (cold call) from a rep that, although was nice enough and courteous, he caused me a certain amount of pain. After the call, I thought about how many other times I had felt this kind of pain when on the customer side of the sales process, and there were many.

I felt pain because in these instances, there was no attempt to close me.

During the sales process, in person or on the phone, as salespeople and as prospects, we go through very real emotions. Some so strong that they may manifest physically. (Like the cold flush you feel when you are about to finally make that first phone call)

There is often talk here about consultative selling where part of the objective is to uncover the prospect's pain and than go about offering the solution. This is not the kind of pain I'm speaking of.

The pain I'm speaking of manifests itself in any type of sale where the salesperson has no plan, no script, and therefore, no path to a close or is simply afraid to close.

As a salesperson, you must have a logical path to a close. Whether you use a script or believe that you are skilled enough to "wing it", if you do not have that path, you are wasting the prospects time.

The times that I've felt this pain, it was because I was waiting for the salesperson to close, to give me a reason to buy. If he wasn't going to ask me to buy, what is the purpose of the call? Should I start to think there's something he's hiding? Is the price going to shock me? Oddly enough, I'm not thinking he's afraid to close. I can't recall a time when I thought that a salesperson was afraid to close...my mind always went to the negative and raised questions about the product or service.

Closing isn't just the logical conclusion of a well thought out sales presentation. It is what your prospect is expecting you to do, and if you don't do it, naturally and with confidence, your prospect has every right to conclude that there is something that you are hiding.

I promise you that if your sales process and presentation is sound and your prospect is properly qualified, your prospect is expecting you to close the deal.

In fact, if you've presented your case properly, your prospect is actually anticipating you to close the deal. If you don't, that anticipation becomes anxiety, and that anxiety becomes pain.

Close the sale and end the pain. If you're not closing, you're just visiting, and I don't know about your day, but during a workday, I don't have time for random visits, and neither do my prospects.