Most sales appointments consist of the salesperson telling the prospect about what they want to sell them. While it’s important that your prospect knows the features and benefits of working with you, it is much more successful when the prospect tells you they need your product or service.

How do you do that? Ask them questions. This leads your prospect to not only tell you what they need, but also figure out it for themselves. Most people are so busy with the day-to-day operations of getting their jobs done, they don’t often think of how an alternative could help. Good questions to get them thinking about this include:
• How do you spend most of your day?
• What’s not getting done?
• What’s your biggest challenge?

Once you have completed this step, you’re ready to move on. Skip a step, and you may find yourself stymied at the end, unable to close a sale.

Close 2: The prospect says "yes, I have a need for your product or service"

In the first close, your prospect told you about where they need help. Your next close is specific to getting the prospect to tell you that they need your product or service. This is your opportunity to show them how your product or service can help them in their specific situation.

In this phase, your conversation should go something like this: “I thought about what you said and I think we have a product or service that can help you.” As you talk about what you’re proposing, ask them if this can help them with the specific need they’ve told you they've described. The close for this step is when they tell you, “yes.” That could be "yes we could use it", or "yes we like something about what you’re offering."

At this point they’ve told you where they need help, and you’ve shown them how you can help with that specific need. Now you’re ready to get them to commit.

Close 3: Move forward

This is when you make a proposal to get the sale. And it’s a very natural progression for your prospect because they’ve told you their challenge and that they need your help—you didn’t tell them. You found their specific need and then showed them how you could help them accomplish their goals.

Now give them a proposal that clearly defines what you want them to do. The easier it is for them to buy, the more likely they’ll move forward.

Getting to Success
Closing is a process that requires goals for each contact you have with a prospect or customer. If you don’t know where you are in the closing process, neither will your prospect. Whether you close in one meeting or after a dozen contacts differs from product to product and prospect to prospect, but the process remains fairly similar.

360 Business consulting can help with all of your sales needs, from better closing techniques, to training your salespeople to developing and implementing profitable sales campaigns. Click here to receive more information on increasing sales or to contact us for a no-risk, no-cost consultation.