Confirming the Sale: Closing

People buy from people. Better yet, people love to buy. The buying experience can be very rewarding and can satisfy many of the motives to buy: ego, prestige, status, greed, joy of spending money, peace of mind, and so on. The ideal sales process is a mutual journey of honesty, trust, and respect as you and your customer work in harmony through the Sequential Model. When the journey is mutual, confirming the sale is not a matter of if, but when.

Traditionally, this step is referred to as "closing the sale." However, the word "closing" has negative connotations that conjure up images of unscrupulous sales representatives using manipulative, guerrilla tactics designed to coerce unsuspecting customers into buying. Traditional closing techniques typically violate the sales relationship. Customers today are tired and irritated by these offensive, manipulative, unethical arm-twisting tactics.

Make buying easy for your customer by confirming the sale using a nonmanipulative, straightforward approach and presenting a practical, value-added solution. Confirming is the pinnacle of selling achievement. It is when the customer awards a gold medal to the salesperson who delivered a win-win, value-added performance. However, confirming does not happen in isolation from the total sales process. You need to be engineering commitment throughout the entire sales call because anything you do or say, at any step, will either erode or enhance the sale. Chronologically, the confirmation comes as Step #7 of the Sequential Model, but be cognizant that your success at this point is based on a series of buy-ins or confirmations throughout the journey. Confirmation simply means to create a shared sense of enthusiasm to do business then exercise the power of asking. The ideal situation is a sales entrepreneur who can confidently ask for the business and at the same time be diligent in building a relationship by asking smart questions. Don't underestimate the power of asking.

"Man who wait for roast duck to fly into mouth, wait very, very long time." (Chinese Proverb)

Why is it that so many salespeople become paralyzed with fear at the thought of closing? Even when they have successfully navigated through the previous six steps they still fail to ask for a buying decision. The reasons are as diverse as customers themselves. The most common one is fear. Fear of rejection, fear of sounding silly, fear of failure, fear of upsetting the customer, the feeling of not being good enough or worthy enough to ask. All valid reasons, but unfortunately this becomes a negative habit pattern that seriously compromises our success at confirming. In the interest of harmony and not offending a potential customer, we unknowingly sacrifice our own agendas by failing to ask.

Psychologists agree that the fear of asking is learned through negative conditioning experienced as early as childhood. Our parents, teachers, siblings, and even friends have all contributed to nurturing this debilitating virus. No one is born with it. Your fears are all learned and reinforced through repetition by those around you, even yourself. As one lady said when finally asked out by a fellow she admired, "The trouble with you men is that you often reject yourselves before you give us women a chance to." She was elated when he finally asked her out, and without hesitation accepted his invitation. The same analogy applies to salespeople. We often reject or doubt our own proposals or presentations long before we give the customer a chance to. However, because it is a learned condition, it can be unlearned as well, and sometimes very quickly. I suggest there is a direct relationship between low corporate self-esteem and negative self-talk, and your confidence to ask for business. Confirming demands an attitude of confidence, expecting the customer to say yes. Anything less puts you in entrepreneurial quicksand. Just as the Chinese proverb suggests, don't expect rewards such as roast duck or a confirmed sale unless you ASK.

The modul of Closing:
Five Magic Words
Is It No, or Is It Know?
Three Ingredients of a Yes
When to Confirm
Nine Tips for Confirming the Sale
Doubling Your Close Ratio
Be #2