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There are two critical skills every business must master in order to build a sales pipeline. They are 1) outbound and 2) closing.

You can have a great product and call script, but getting new customers can be challenging if you’re not confident in your ability to close. 

In this article, I’ll go over some tips that can help you improve your closing ratio and get more happy customers along the way. 

What are the Most Popular Sales Closing Techniques?

There are many different closing techniques, but here are some of the most popular ones:

The Assumptive Close

The Assumptive Close is precisely that – you assume the deal will close. The tone and language you use with your prospect goes a long way with the assumptive close and generally requires a bit more sales experience to get good at it. 

The Assumptive Close requires that you read the customer. Generally, there are buying signals that you, as the sales rep, can pick up on that will assume the close. By focusing on the prospects’ interests, handling objections, and responding accordingly you will gain further insights as to whether an Assumptive Close might be possible. 

This technique works perfectly if you can articulate confidence and rational thinking to your prospects. Then, if you believe your product is the perfect fit, a deal is inevitable.

The Now or Never Close

This technique involves using language that suggests to prospects that now (or a specified timeframe) is the best time to make a purchase. For example, you can use terms like:

• Very few are remaining in stock
• Commit today and get a 20% discount
• Discounted price until Friday

This technique works magic because it makes the prospect feel like they will miss out on a great offer if they don’t make their purchase during that time. 

The Now or Never Close is also great if you have room to move on your initial price and the urgency isn’t quite there yet with your prospect. 

The type of close is a good option at the end of a sales month, and you need to hit the quota. 

The Hard Close

The Hard Close is helpful if you have nothing to lose.

This approach requires communicating directly with the prospect to close the deal. It involves asking for firm commitments with questions such as:

• When can you sign the contract?
• Is there any reason you wouldn’t go ahead with what we’ve discussed?
• What needs to happen to get this done?

This approach is a great way to know where your customer stands and avoid having to make follow-ups that could cost more time and money without closing the deal. Remember, every opportunity you focus on that doesn’t close could be spent on an opportunity that might have a higher chance of closing.

As this approach can be risky, it works best when you know that you have several options and don’t want to waste time on a single lead.

The Summary Close

The Summary Close involves providing an overview of your company’s product and highlighting the benefits and value your solution will deliver to your customers. 

You can use this technique to highlight the differences between your products and where it excels against your competitors.

A prospect could quickly turn into a closed deal by simply learning more about the benefits your product can offer them. Use this technique to close deals with customers who need to be reminded that your product offers everything they’re looking for.

The Option Close

This tactic is similar to the Summary Close technique, where you offer options between more or different products, hoping that your prospects would go with at least one option rather than no purchase. 

You can have two products with different pricing plans, features, or even discounts to incentivise them into making their decision more promptly.

By having alternatives at a customer’s disposal, they may be more compelled to make their choice. In addition, if the price is an issue, a cheaper option may help seal the deal. 

If you have tiered product levels and know that both products will work for your consumers, this can be a great technique to close a sale.

The Question Close

Asking your customer questions can help you understand why a product works or doesn’t work for them. For example, you can ask questions about why the product isn’t suitable, why a feature isn’t the best fit to solve their problem, why they did not proceed to checkout (if it’s online), and so on. 

Their responses will provide you with better understanding and enable you to explain to them why you have the best offer and product that can solve their problem, or, if it doesn’t fit their needs, make adjustments to the current offering so it does.

You can use this technique to deal with clients who are hesitant to make a purchase and are not providing a justifiable explanation for their decision.

The Suggestion Close

This is a firmer closing technique where you offer your views about what would work best for your customer. You are the expert, after all. 

The Suggestion Close involves offering factual statements. Examples include information such as:

• If you start using it today, you will see results in a week.
• You will get your shipments faster if you pay in two days.

Factual statements can go a long way to reassuring your prospect, and they will likely react positively. Remember, as a sales professional, your responsibility is to lead the sale. How you influence can go a long way to help move the deal forward. 

The Suggestion Close is particularly useful if you have an excellent relationship with your customer.

What are the Best Tips to Close a Sale?

While the best salespeople know that closing the sale isn’t just about the pitch, it’s also about informing prospects of your expertise and your ability to provide them with a solution they’ll love. Your ability to close will directly reflect how you perform in previous stages of the sales cycle.

To help you close deals like a pro, here are some tips on how to build rapport throughout the sales process to make closing easier.

Listen to their needs

People buy from people they trust. Unfortunately, you don’t have much time to establish trust, so you must build rapport quickly at the beginning of the sale.

To do this, you must listen. Ask questions, listen carefully and understand their needs, budget, goals, and timeframes.

If you are unsure why they want what they are alluding to or what will solve their problem, ask open-ended questions like “What is your business goal?” or “Can you tell me more about that?”. Understanding your customer goes a long way to helping you close the deal. 

Be helpful

By being helpful, your customer will feel more comfortable and confident in their decision to buy from you. In addition, you want to be the person they turn to when they need advice or have questions. After all, you are the expert, and your customers will appreciate that they can count on you and your expertise. 

When people buy something, they want the decision process to be as easy as possible, so don’t make them do extra research or figure things out on their own if you can help them. 

Ask for the sale

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. Asking for the sale can be done in several ways:

• Asking if they’re ready to proceed (“Is it time for us to move ahead?”)
• Asking when they can sign the contract (“When can I get the contract over to you?”)

The key here is to ask without making it sound like you are desperate or being pushy. Instead, it would be best to convey that asking for their business will be mutually beneficial. That is, you get paid and the prospect gets what they want. Everyone wins.

Show appreciation for their business

When you’ve made the sale, showing appreciation for their business is essential. You can do this by saying:

• I appreciate your business.
• Saying thank you or sending them a thank you gift for getting the business

All these things help improve the relationship for years to come.

Continue to nurture the relationship so they come back

The last thing you want to do is leave a customer feeling unsure about whether they made the right decision if you suddenly disappear after getting the sale.

Follow up after the sale to ensure that they are happy with the purchase, if they don’t respond, ensure to leave a voicemail so they know you are following up . This may help encourage them to come back to you In the future or you may be able to provide additional value with upsells and cross-sells. 

What are the Best Negotiation Techniques to Close a Deal?

What do you do when selling something and the customer won’t budge? What if they are not interested in what you have to offer? How can you get them to change their minds and help them agree to a deal? Here are some negotiation techniques to help get a stuck deal moving again. 

• Accept the opinion of your client: Don’t argue with them, and don’t try to convince them otherwise. It can be tempting to try and prove them wrong because, deep down, you back the product you sell. If they want something different from what you are offering, you can only do so much to influence that. Educating the prospect may make them change their opinion based on the factual information you provide. 
• Take ownership of the customer’s problem: This strategy has several benefits: it shows that you care about the customer, helps build rapport with them, and demonstrates your attention and focus on what they are saying. Your customer has a specific problem, and you solve it with a particular solution. 
• Don’t feel superior: Don’t forget this when negotiating. Please don’t assume your client should take whatever you say as fact simply because it comes from a high-powered salesperson with years of experience. Some deals require significant financial outlay and business responsibilities, so the decision can often be emotional. Recognising this and providing support can go a long way in building rapport
• Take nothing personally: Negotiations can be stressful, and sometimes people say things you won’t like to hear. If you let those comments get under your skin, it will only make matters worse! Instead, smile politely, handle objections professionally and move on with the conversation. 
• Stop pitching, start a conversation: Rather than just pitching the features and benefits of your product, it’s essential to listen to your customer. If you give them a chance to talk about their problems and understand them, they are more likely to buy from you.

Conclusion

You should have a good idea of closing the sale and a few helpful tips by now. Of course, it can be challenging, but that’s why we love sales, right!?! Ultimately, your ability to close a deal improves your capacity to earn, and who doesn’t like that?

This is a guest post from Matt Jennings, a Sales Professional with over seven years of experience across outbound, full cycle account and business development management, sales management, and sales operations. His sales experience has had him working Document, SaaS and Financial Services vertical markets and booking some of the world’s largest companies exceeding multiple billion dollars in turnover. In addition, he has experience selling across APAC, EU, UK and US regions. You can read more of his content at matjen.com.