5 Steps to Closing a Sale

As the title states this will be a 5 part series of articles on closing a sale. IF your business relies on direct sales for its cash flow, you will need to read all 5 parts. We’ll start off with “assumption” as it is trait that needs to be at the beginning of every sale. Let me explain:

Assumption is the mother of all sales closing techniques and often no other technique is necessary. To detail its power, think back to before Christopher Columbus, everyone was absolutely sold on the idea of the world being flat. It did not matter whether they knew the fact to be right or wrong, because everyone believed the assumption.

So powerful was this example assumption that even renowned scientists could not change the views of society. Nothing was changed until good ol’ Chris went out past the edge and came back to tell his story. That assumption worked for hundreds of years until there was absolute proof of a fact proving it wrong.

So what does assumption do for your sales presentation? Imagine a sale in which you lead off with an assumption to yourself that this sale is absolutely going to close in your favor. Assume to yourself that you have the greatest product this customer will ever see, and that there will be insurmountable benefits rewarded to the customer upon purchase.

When you start off a sales presentation already assuming the sale, you are now a full believer that you will make that sale until you have absolute proof of the assumption being wrong. That’s how assumption works; it is a believed fact until proven false. Taken seriously, assuming the sale will instantly grant you the confidence, to speak as if your product in fact, was the greatest ever created and that there really will be insurmountable benefits to the customer.

The last sentence of the above paragraph is the most important of this entire article. It can be a mouthful to a novice sales person, but with a couple re-reads can be easily understood. I could not reiterate enough how important that sentence is for you to not only understand, but to believe, and practice every call/presentation. Without assuming the sale your ratio of pitches/sales will suffer greatly as you just could not attain the right amount of confidence for a winning sales pitch every time at bat.

5 Steps to Closing a Sale:
1. Assuming the Sale
2. Control the Conversation
3. Voice Inflection
4. Ask for the Money
5. No Does not Mean No

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