Many clients and friends have talked to me over the years about wanting to improve their sales presentations and closing ratios. Your sales schpeel, presentation, closing techniques and tactics can make or break your marketing you know. It’s not enough to do outstanding marketing to obtain new customers and do continuous marketing to your database for referrals and repeat business, but you also need to be able to ask for and close the sale – or it’s all a big waste of time and money!
How is your sales ratio? Is it 50% or 1 out of 2? Is it much higher like 85% or 8.5 out of 10? If you are closing a small percentage of the leads or potential customers that come through your doors then maybe it has to do with your sales presentation or process?
It’s OK to get help to improve your sales but it’s not something people usually think about when thinking about their marketing. Instead, they think well those ads aren’t working; they aren’t bringing in the right ‘type’ of person. In fact, even the best salespeople listen to CD’s, read books and hear speakers on how they can improve – why wouldn’t the “average Joe” salesperson do this too? Probably because you think you’re good or you think you don’t have time.
You know what? You don’t have the time NOT to brush up at least 2-4 times per year and learn new strategies. It’s not the same market it was 5 or 10 years ago; it’s not all about where you advertise and what your ad says. More than not, it’s about if the potential customer likes you or not or if they were referred to you or not. It’s that simple.
So, if you think those old car salesmen tricks are going to work like they did 5 years ago – they won’t. In fact, you’ll be laughed out of the room (or at least talked about behind your back). The following are a few closing techniques you can use in your sales process – but remember, you have to “be real”, you can’t be fake or they will see right through you and move on to the next person. Use these with caution as they may increase your sales!
5 (of my favorite) Closing Techniques:
1. Assume the Sale – just plain assume they are going to buy and be shocked if they tell you no
2. Fear of Loss – make them feel like they will really be missing out if they don’t buy, they will for sure want to have this product or service
3. Sense of Urgency – they should hurry up and buy before ‘it’s’ gone or ‘something’ happens
4. Optional Close – which one would you like, this one or that one? – OR – do you want to pay by check or credit card?
5. Indifference – make them think like it doesn’t matter to you whether they buy or not, it’s no big deal, it’s up to them – this way they don’t feel the pressure and tend to think they’ve made up their own mind
10 Sales Presentation Tips:
1. Sell the outcome, not the product – instead of telling them what you want to tell them, tell them what they want to hear and how it will benefit them
2. Ask questions to find your prospect’s hot buttons
3. Only talk about their hot buttons
4. Do not ‘feature dump’ (blabbering to them everything about all your products or services)
5. Listen more than you talk
6. Dig deeper when they give objections – find the real reasons then address those and only those
7. Ask for the sale at least 4 times before giving up – you can do this in various ways that they might not even notice throughout the presentation
8. Build relationships and nurture them – during the presentation and ongoing
9. Know whether your product or service will most likely require a long or short sales process and then work it accordingly and don’t expect a miracle right off the bat with a long sale, don’t let yourself get disappointed – remember, it takes an average of 10 calls to get 1 sale (cold calling avg)
10. Send thank you notes or emails before, during and after the sales process
Some of you might wonder where I came up with all of this, but really it came from my many years of sales in various different fields and my participation in numerous sales training programs and seminars (from corporate training to sell it or starve).
You know, I used to do door-to-door sales? I used to sell oil change certificates and restaurant coupons door-to-door in residential neighborhoods and to businesses…”Want $5 oil changes?” was my big opening line; I made a killing back then!