Imagine a scenario where you have identified a lead, and had multiple discussions. You have spent a lot of effort in moving the customer from the top of the funnel to the bottom of the funnel
However, the latest conversation with the customer goes something like this:
Prospect: I liked your product. I will have to think a little before purchasing it.
You: Okay, thank you. Do let us know about your decision.Likely, the customer never comes back to you and you lose the sale. All your efforts have gone in vain.
To make sure that such a situation never happens to you,
We have gathered 41 tips on how to close a sale:
1. Ask the customer to try and experience the product
When customers ask to get back to you, it means they are not sure about their decision of buying the product.
There may be a few reasons behind that, and one of the reasons is the lack of product experience.
Hence, you can ask the customer to experience the product once again before making a decision.
Experiencing the product will change the mindset of the customer and there will be a high probability that the decision will be in your favor.
This is a nice little trick to entice the customer to buy the product.
2. Showcase your product as a complete package for his requirements
What if the prospect asks for more options? Especially when you have only one solution to offer?
This can be a blessing in disguise.
Rather than having various options, you can portray your product as a complete solution for the customer’s requirement.
This technique helps you to make the decision easy for the customer because who doesn’t want a complete solution?
3. Build a relationship with the prospect
Building a relationship is one of the most important aspects of sales. As a salesperson, you have to build that relationship and earn the prospects’ trust. Because without building trust, making a sale is really difficult, especially if you are in a competitive space.
There are 2 simple ways to do this
- Genuinely care about their interests and problems.
- Try to get them unstuck in areas where they are struggling, even if it doesn’t directly lead to a sale for you.
If you need help keeping track of all your prospects and their needs you can use the lead management features of TeleCRM
4. Explain numbers to the client.
The features and benefits of your products are not a checklist for the prospect. Instead, notify the benefits in clear numbers that the prospect can understand easily.
For example, if you are selling a chapati maker, you should not focus only on the technology used. You have to explain its benefits and use in the form of numbers. You can say that this capacity maker can make 5 chapatis a minute which can save 2 hrs of your work. This helps the customer understand the impact of your product.
5. Showcase the values of the product.
Showcasing the features and technology of the product is not enough. A salesperson has to explain the value the product will add to the customer.
For example, TeleCRM uses Angular, firebase, and AWS cloud to create a secure and seamless, and user-friendly CRM experience but we pitch it as “The one app for all your sales work” or “The app that helps you to make more calls, close more deals, and get perfect tracking” because ultimately, that’s the real value that it adds to our prospects and users.
6. Compare the product with other competing products
At the time of the decision, the customer is always confused between 2-3 similar products in the market. Hence, he may ask for more time before buying your product.
As a salesperson, you have to ensure that you should bring out the point which shows your product is the best among all its competitors. This comparison will give him the confidence that your product is actually the best for him.
7. Contact the right decision maker
Many times salespeople start pitching to whoever will listen. Without even asking themselves – is he the right decision maker?
This wastes the time and energy of the salesperson.
Plus if your information doesn’t reach the right decision-maker, you’ll lose the deal. It’s that simple.
This is why as a salesperson, you should first find out who is the decision maker. And try to contact him/her. This will make the overall selling process faster.
8. Focus more on the desired outcome for the client
Before you start pitching it’s important to ask the right questions and understand the requirements of the prospect. Then showcase how your product can fulfill those requirements.
As a salesperson, you have to focus more on the desired outcome for the client after using your product. Use examples like,
Buying this automatic washing machine will save your time and energy of washing clothes by hand
while selling your product.
9. Make a helpful approach to the client
Every prospect who comes to buy a product needs that product to solve his problem. So it becomes extremely important for you as a salesperson to first listen to their concerns.
As a salesperson, you should always follow the helpful approach. You have to show how your product can help the customer to solve his problem. Your helpful approach can help you easily build trust with the prospect.
10. Confidence is key in communication
Imagine a situation when you went to buy a car in a showroom and you asked a salesperson to explain the technical specification of the product. But as a salesperson is not a technical guy sp he becomes nervous and starts giving false information. He will lose the prospect’s confidence in the product and also the deal as a result.
As a salesperson, you should always be confident. If a customer asks you a question that is not in your area of expertise, instead of getting nervous, just confidently say; Sorry sir/madam, I am not aware of this subject but I will connect you with my expert. They will guide you on the same.
This will increase the prospect’s confidence in you and it’ll increase the chances of him buying from you.
11. Use the “something for nothing technique”
People tend to notice the good things you do for them. If you desperately need the sale and can afford to lose a little bit of margin, you should offer the customer additional perks like a discount, free installation, or free maintenance for a limited time. It’s a quick way to build trust and get expedite the transaction!
12. Follow the pace of the customer
Following the pace of customers is important. Some customers have all the information and they just quickly need some key insights in order to decide. Whereas others need to be educated.
So as a salesperson, you should always follow the pace at which customers want to move further.
This will help customers to understand things better and they can make decisions more efficiently.
13. Regular engagement is essential
Sales are all about your relationship with the client. To maintain the relationship with the client you have to engage with them regularly. Because before buying any product, customers will compare your product with other options available on the market. This will create some doubt in their minds.
Hence, your interaction with the customer plays a major role in sales. You may ask the customer for the right time to call. After that always take timely follow-ups. This shows the customer that you are dedicated to your product and will increase the customer’s confidence in it.
14. Continue the conversation.
Selling isn’t just about getting the first purchase. Sales is a long-term play of maintaining a relationship with the customer.
Plus, maintaining a relationship with a prospect who has already purchased isn’t that hard.
Just have a conversation after the sale of the product. And call in from time to time.
Plus, this will help you get repeat buys, upsells, and even referrals.
15. Counter prospect objections smartly
In the sales process, customers will have objections! Those objections may be about a product specification, Brand image, or the way you are selling.
So, as a salesperson, you should always counter the objection smartly.
For example, if a customer says
Prospect: Your product is too expensive than competitor products
You: Yes, that's right! We actually are more expensive! But it's because we use the best quality raw material in the market. This product will have zero maintenance and will last much longer.Then you should be answering
Using this approach you will be able to solve the customer query and will gain the trust of customers in your product.
16. Make it easy for prospects to take the next step
Imagine if you buy a car but the salesperson does not explain the next steps like the registration formalities or mode of delivery. You will have to follow up with the company for every little thing, and that will create a shitty buying experience for you.
A salesperson’s job is to make every step of the buying process easy. This means the prospect should not feel the need to follow up on any steps. These steps can include raising an invoice, signing the contract, or the delivery of the product.
You or someone from your company may have to handhold them through the entire process to ensure that the customer can easily use your product or service. This ensures that you build a strong long-term relationship with the customers. It will help you to get repeat orders, upsells, and referrals as well.
17. Always provide guarantees
People may not always trust your product or company, especially if you are a new brand. In this case, you need to provide guarantees like a Cashback guarantee, Satisfaction guarantee, Performance Guarantee, etc.
You must ensure that when closing a sale, you create a positive and trustworthy image of your brand and product. If required, allow them to use the product for a limited period as a free trial. If that is not possible, talk about case studies where your product has worked wonders for a similar customer or show them customer testimonials.
18. Create urgency with the ‘Now or Never’ closing technique
If you feel that the customer is stalling the purchase, you can use the “Now or Never” closing technique. This technique focuses on creating urgency. Which provides the customer additional impetus to close the decision-making process quickly.
I see that you have been looking for a CRM tool for a long time. If you buy our product by tomorrow, we can give you XYZ Customization for free. Hurry up because the offer expires tomorrow at 5 pm!Creating urgency will help you increase your conversion rates while closing a sale.
19. Respond fast
Always look to respond within a stipulated time frame that matches your industry standards. Especially when dealing with inbound prospects. Any inbound query should be taken up within minutes instead of hours and days. Also, be prepared to handle any type of customer objection or request, and reply on time to ensure the closure of the sale.
Late responses make the customers impatient. This tarnishes the image of your brand as well. Prospects will lose trust in your product and brand. And back out of the deal as a result. This is when another competitor can easily acquire them. Plus, you will lose all future business with that prospect.
Hence, responding immediately or at least quickly to leads and queries is essential for closing sales.
20. Be prepared to face rejection
You must never be worried about your customer saying no to your offer. Because if you are afraid of the prospect saying no before you start the closure conversation you will never be able to sell confidently. Just focus on the bright side and remain optimistic. You must believe in your product and the value it brings to your prospects. Only then, you will be able to successfully close the sale.
In the worst case, if the prospect rejects your offer, always ask them why? This will give you key insights on ways to improve your product and pitch for future prospects.
21. Properly research your prospects
This step is necessary even just before closure. To see whether there is any change in various factors affecting the sale, like changes in the leadership position of the prospect’s company, any market incident affecting all the companies in the industry, etc.
You should always conduct thorough research about your prospect when before approaching. You have to clearly understand what might be the customer’s problems and how your product or service can help them overcome those problems. With this understanding, you will be more confident while speaking with the customer and closing the deal.
You should also ensure that you get to know as much as possible about the decision-makers in that company. All these things will help you to have a natural conversation with the prospect, resulting in higher chances of you closing the deal.
The more natural you sound, the more the customer feels comfortable talking with you. This helps to build rapport and establish a long-term relationship with customers.
22. Ensure that the sales call sounds conversational
This tip is closely related to the previous point. Now that you have done all the research, it is time to ensure that you can use the information gathered through the research in a conversational tone that does not sound rehearsed or practiced like a sales script.
Always remember, the most important thing about a business is not the technology, money, or product. It is people. People are the key components of any business. Hence you need to create a human relationship with the prospect first in order to get to a transaction.
To do this, you can talk about challenges that the prospect might be facing, which are common across the industry or you might start your call with some personal topics of shared interest between you and the prospect.
23. Practice the art of listening
When you are talking to a prospect you must listen carefully. You must not just listen to him, but also analyze what he is saying to understand his problems and objections clearly.
Whenever the prospect talks about any specific problem they are facing it is always a good idea to repeat what he has said. This helps you ensure that you have understood the problem correctly and it also gives him the confidence that you are listening and willing to help him solve those problems rather than just talking to him in order to pinch a sale.
24. Using the “If I – Will you” closing technique
Many times you will find that the prospect will ask for something which is not part of your offerings. However, if you can, it’s worth trying to accommodate him. In such a scenario you can use the “If I – Will You” closing technique.
For example, if the customer asks for email automation while purchasing a CRM product and normally you do not offer email automation at that price, you can tell the customer
If I can provide you with email automation if I do that will you sign the deal by the end of the week?
This is a great sales technique to reduce the time of the sales cycle.
25. Asking the right questions at the right time
You should always focus on asking the right questions to the prospect at the right time. This helps you to gather important bits of information.
Always keep in mind, that the prospect does not know what information you require. Hence it is your duty as a salesperson to ask the right questions and get the info that you need to proceed.
Open-ended questions tend to work better than closed-ended questions.
They allow the customer to be more descriptive and give you more information to analyze.
Another benefit of asking the right questions at the right time is that it creates a natural-sounding conversation which will give your sales process a human touch and increase the likelihood of converting the prospect.
26. Always follow up
You must never hesitate to follow up. Many times you might have closed the sale verbally. However, you have not yet done the official documentation. You have provided the prospect with all the documents which they need to sign and process.
Sometimes it may also happen that the prospect has verbally agreed to close the sale but has not yet made the payment. This can happen because the prospect may be busy and must have completely forgotten about the conversation with you.
It is always better to follow up with the prospect after a specific period. You must be careful not to bombard him with too many reminders as that becomes irritating.
27. The Hard Closing Technique
Your organization will have a practice of closing the accounting books at a particular time. This can be the end of the financial year, annual year, quarter, or even month. So at such a time you as a salesperson will use the hard close technique. You will ensure that you close the sale before the books are closed by informing the prospect that there might be changes in the pricing after a particular date or time.
Script for the hard close:
I have just called to tell you that the quarter will be closed at the end of the month. After this, there might be a change in the pricing as it is subject to the decision of the management. You can close the sale now and ask for delivery at some other time to get the benefit of the current prices.
28. Highlight the benefits, not the features
One common mistake made by many beginners is – they get too excited about the features of the product. While closing the sale, they start focusing more on the features provided by the product. However, the prospect is not interested in the features. He is interested in the benefits he can derive from the features.
For example, your CRM solution may provide a visually appealing analytics dashboard. However, while selling you must not focus on the feature which is the dashboard but instead focus on the benefits which are the actionable insights the prospect can get through the dashboard.
This approach will help you in closing more deals by becoming more customer-centric.
29. Using the Question Close Technique
The question-close technique is perfect to make prospects realize that the product solves their problems. Whenever a prospect objects or talks about a problem they face you should talk about how they will benefit by using a feature of your product that ultimately solves their problem.
After this, you can ask the prospect a question like “Now that you have understood how this product benefits you, would you agree that it solves your problem?”
If the prospect is satisfied and replies positively then you can go ahead and close the deal. If he says no you can further drill down to understand which problem is not being solved and why.
30. The Needs Close Technique
One thing you can always do is ask the prospect for a checklist of the problems they wish to solve through the product. After that, you can simply tick the problems which your product successfully solves. In an ideal scenario, you will tick all the problems in the check sheet.
After that when you are conversing with the prospect simply show them the checklist. This is a powerful way to communicate how your product solves the prospect’s problem and makes them realize that your product is a one-stop solution for all their needs. Once the prospect realizes this, closing the deal becomes much easier.
31. The assumptive close
It’s like playing with the psychology of the prospect. Let’s say, a prospect, wants to buy a house, the very next question you can ask is: “So, when do you want to shift?” This will help them to fortify their decision and you are able to get them one step closer to closing the deal.
32. The option close
Option close is very similar to assumptive close. In this technique, you can give your prospect an option to choose from. For e.g., you could say: “How do you want to make the payment for the order? By cash or by card”.
33. The suggestion close
Let’s say one of your old customers came, he was using “Product A” and wants to purchase the same again. You have a different product; “Product B”, you suggest to him that he should try this one, instead of the earlier one. He buys the second one! Why? Because he trusts you and you have a good rapport with him. He believes that you provide good and profitable suggestions to him.
34. The urgency close
In this technique, the salesperson creates a situation of urgency, and that leads to quickly deciding on the side of the prospect e.g.- “The offer which I’m showing to you is for a very limited period of time and we have a high demand for it, so I suggest you grab it before it’s late quickly”. This can be done but only when you are having quite a unique relationship with your client.
35. Remain calm
Try to remain calm. It gets overwhelming and some prospects try to make life difficult for you. But being a professional means having the ability to remain calm, no matter what.
36. Never get upset
A sales job means calling 100+ random strangers every day and getting rejected by some as well. Not everyone is going to purchase from you. You need to understand that it’s not personal. This is just how telesales works.
37. Never feel superior to your prospect
Suppose you are providing software and you know everything about it. But your prospect does not know anything. Heck, he isn’t even tech-savvy. You need to understand 2 things:
- He is the one with the money!
- Your job as a salesperson is to guide and help him get unstuck. Because he is the actual hero of the story. Just because you know something that he doesn’t, you don’t have the right to be arrogant about it.
If you don’t understand this basic point you will just keep losing deal after deal without knowing why.
38. Accept the opinion of your client as well
In sales, everybody has their own opinion of understanding and saying things. You need to listen and genuinely try to understand them. Because no one is going to buy from you if they don’t feel heard or understood.
39. Master being Impassive
sales can be related to the game of cards, you need to be content, understand your prospect, and not show your cards until you need to. This means, do not bluff, try to remain impassive, and hide your emotions even if the sales are too lucrative.
40. Start taking ownership of the customer’s problems
One of the qualities of a top salesperson is to make their prospect understand that they are in good hands. And to do so, you need to understand their problems and treat their problems as your own.
41. Take Initiative for yourself
you and your prospect get stuck on an issue and find it hard to move forth, in that case, taking the right initiative is very important. That means do not get distracted and try to remain focused.
Conclusion
With this, we have come to the end of the 41 closing tips for sales to boost your performance today.
Start implementing them to see instant results!