The Fear of Closing
Coach Nate here, and today I want to talk to you about something that holds many salespeople back from achieving the success they deserve – the fear of closing.
Have you ever wondered why prospects don’t buy? It’s often simply because they were never asked! Salespeople use all their skills to get in front of a prospect, qualify them, uncover their needs, and then they stand back and wait for the prospect to make a decision instead of taking the final step of helping them make the decision.
3 Reasons Salespeople Don’t Ask for the Business
The problem is, there are three main reasons why salespeople don’t ask for the business:
- They don’t know what to do
- They don’t know how to do it
- They don’t want to do it.
Conquering Your Fear
So, what can you do to conquer your fear of closing? The first step is to toughen up your emotional skin. The person who gets the most yeses also gets the most noes. You need to learn to deal with the potential bruises to your emotional well-being. This is easier said than done, but the best way to do it is through practice. Go looking for noes.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you should ask prospects, “You don’t want to buy this do you?” That will certainly get you a lot more noes, but not more business. You’ll get more than enough noes by simply trying to close sales properly.
The next step is to know how to do it. Many salespeople will say they know how to close the sale, but when push comes to shove, they’re more talk than action. They know what they’re supposed to do, but they don’t know how to do it. For the most part, they’re simply not prepared to attempt a close.
Choose Your Weapon
So, here’s what you can do. Choose a couple of closing techniques you feel comfortable with, and write the actual words you intend to use on a 3×5 card. Keep this card on the dashboard of your car and repeat the words until you’ve committed them to memory. Work on your attitude by telling yourself that you owe it to your customer, your company, and yourself to at least attempt a close at the appropriate time.
I like to use the assumptive close {See Book}. If I sense that it’s time to close, I’ll just begin signing the paperwork as if the prospect has already said yes. I leave it up to them to tell me that they aren’t ready. If set up properly this is very easy to execute.
Is it Time to Close?
But it’s not enough to just prepare yourself to make more closes; you have to prepare the customer as well. And how do you do that? By using trial closes. A trial close is an opinion-asking question, the answer to which tells you how receptive your prospect is to make a decision in your favor. Some typical trial closes might be:
- “How does that sound?”
- “If you were to go ahead, when would you want delivery?”
- “How do you see yourself benefiting from… ?”
- “How do you feel about all this?”
A positive response to any of these trial closes is usually a sign that you should ask for the order. The key is to have one or two trial closes committed to memory and ready to use. Do what I did – write a few on 3×5 cards.
Summing it Up
In closing, remember that there’s no magic formula. Closing is 70 percent attitude, 20 percent technique, and 10 percent skill. Prepare yourself, prepare the customer, and do the deed. You owe it to your customer, your company, and most important of all, you owe it to yourself. So, go out there and close some deals!
Working on your closing techniques, check out this deep dive into How to remove doubt to close the sale now!.
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