In this blog series I am going to share the first of total six skills sets required to be successful in the new gen sales and how you can use email marketing automation to get the most of it…
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When we look into the previous generation of sales…. It looks something like this…
You start with
prospecting…
then diagnose the problem…
present the solution and
close the sale…
So now we have to take a very different approach from the previous generation of sales and move on to the new gen sales…
The current gen sales looks something like this….
• Closing.
• Prospecting.
• Presenting.
• Deep Diagnosing.
• Negotiating.
• Execution.
You may wonder how can you close without prospecting first? The closing which I am talking about here is gaining agreements from your dream client to move from one stage to another stage in the sales process.
Without you getting your dream client to agree to invest his time, energy, provide information to diagnose the problem, look at the solutions you are offering etc… without you getting these small closures… you don’t have a chance of getting the sale at all.
Sot Let’s quickly move on and look at the new generation skill sets one by one and how can you sharpen them.
The First skill set is closing:
1. Closing:
Now closing here doesn’t means you are asking for the confirmation from the prospect to accept the proposal and asking for the cheque.
I am not talking about manipulative closing techniques. If you want to understand about high pressure closing… go and watch this movie called “Boiler Room” … in your leisure time. The techniques used in that movie are not relevant and I would say they are unethical and they don’t work at all.
Closing is important… but it has to be done in stages… so that your prospect builds trust on you and you can also easily identity in which stage your prospect is standing right now
if you had seen the e-commerce sales funnel…. You will understand what I am saying…
Lets look at this picture….
Product Picture:
You can see various stages a website visitor goes through until he completes the purchase. Even after the purchase, the buyer is followed up with cross sells, recommendations to repeat the purchase.
Now similar principle can be applied in the offline world also… when you are dealing with prospect face to face, phone call follow ups or texting or even using digital mediums….
Now how often you should ask for these small closures depends and varies based on the price and the risk of the product you are offering.
Neil rackham who is a researcher and academician in the field of sales, negotiation and communication found that frequent asking for a final closure lead to more sales when the price and risk is relatively low. Take an example of pizza ad… the more they show… the more sales goes up….
Whereas when the price and risk is higher, like it is in the case of complex b2b sales, aggressive closing behavior worked against the sales person. Now this doesn’t mean you should get into a mode of never be closing from always be closing.
Now if you are someone one who thinks that I am not too pushy, I don’t want to come across someone who is being to salesy, or I don’t feel comfortable asking for closure…. This attitude of not asking for the closure can hurt your hurt your sales figures and growth.
Now let us look what makes the asking bad… is the asking itself is bad or the motive behind asking makes it good or bad.. it is the motive behind your ask is what makes it good or bad.
If you are asking from your clients perspective… the asking is not bad… you are only nurturing him… helping him to make decisions to solve his problem…
If you are asking from a self-oriented point of view…. To achieve your sales targets, just for numbers sake, or get your commissions… that makes the asking bad…
Now you cannot be a hard selling guy like the one in movie “Boilers Room” or too soft not to avoid asking for commitments…
It is liking riding a bicycle where you have to keep your balance and keep riding…
Now there are ten agreements you have to ask from your prospective client in stages, in order to get to the final closure.
Lets go through the ten agreements which you have to close a sale.
• Agreeing to Invest Time:
• Agreeing to Explore Opportunities;
• Agreeing to Build Better Future
• Agreeing to Associate with you.
• Agreeing to Build Consensus
• Agreeing to Invest Time, Money and energy
• Agreeing to Review the proposed solution
• Agreeing to Resolve Concerns
• Agreeing to Decide on the future course of the action.
• Agreeing to Execute and implement the solution provided by you.
In order to move your prospect up the ladder in every step… you have to keep creating value…
This value chain your create should empower them to make decisions to move to the next stage.
If you Keep adding value at every step, it becomes easy for your clients to take decisions.
It is not necessary that you have to rigidly follow up these ten agreements… the steps may vary depending upon the product you are selling…. You have to find the right tune and the rhythm for your product…
Every agreement you gain is a step taken towards the final closure. When you divide the entire sales process there is an opportunity for you to create value to your clients at every stage and creating value will lead to building strong relationships, increase in sales and satisfied customers…
There are three ways to improve your closing ability:
Remember… these three points…
ü Plan the agreement or that small closure you want to gain in every sales call or the touch point.
ü Be simple, honest and open. Be polite, professional and direct when you ask for the agreement.
ü Ask for the agreement after creating value.
Now with the evolution of digital mediums the whole scenario has changed. You can automate the whole process of closing using email marketing automation and you can learn more about this by getting free access to my email marketing automation blueprint course…
Click here to sign up for my email marketing automation blueprint course.
Keep rocking in your life business and work… have a phenomenal day… see you in my next blog post…