7 Tips to Becoming a GREAT Closer

If you want to close more sales you have to learn how to close more sales. Sounds a bit simplistic but the reality is the diminishing production of the sales person's starts with the inability to close the sale. Why prospect, make cold calls, or follow-up if you continue to fail in the close? This is why so many salespeople continue to do less and less over their career. In fact did you know that the top producers outperform bottom producers by 10 to 1?

If you want to close those extra sales, it will not just come to you because you call on more people. You must learn to be a better closer. Here are seven things you can do to ensure you become a better closer:

1. Make a Commitment to Greatness
You have to get committed to being great, not just average. Sales can be a painful profession for the average and bottom performers and massively rewarding for those that are great. Those that live, breathe, and eat their profession become great. I have never met a GREAT closer that wasn't all in and completely consumed by his/her trade.

All great success is preceded by a commitment to being great reinforced each day by the continuing commitment to being great. If you aren't great you are average and I know you don't want that.

2. Get Multiple and Creative Closing Strategies
The easy sales go down easy and the rest of them require extra effort and persistence. If you only have three or four strategies for closing the resistant buyer, you cannot stay in the transaction long enough to close. Closing the customer is like taking a trip, you are limited to the amount of gas you have in the tank. A great closer will have more closing strategies than a customer has objections, stalls and reasons for not closing.

3. Believe Price is the Issue.
Buyers are obsessed and consumed with price as the way to define value. The great closer knows this and is an expert at handling the price issue, knowing it is almost never the real issue. If the buyer is certain the product or service will solve the problem they will pay the price. The same customer that has a black American Express card stands in line at Starbucks to pay too much for coffee, spends $90 for Pay Per View fight to watch Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, and then complains about the cost of pizza and doesn't want to tip the delivery guy. Price is never the issue it is how it is presented and how badly does the buyer believe the value of your offer exceeds its price.

The great closer is convinced that price is never THE reason people will not buy, no matter how many times their buyer says so. Price is a myth and it's proven out every day by consumers, families, managers, and governments that are over budget.Everyone complains about price and then spends more than they want.

Everyone complains about price and then spends more than they want.

4. Sell Your Story, Quit Buying the Customer's Story
In every sale, someone is closed. The question is always who is doing the selling? Is it you selling why you should do it now or why the buyer should not do it. Salespeople who buy into the customer's story will always limit their production. That does not mean you should ignore them or lack empathy with their situation. It also doesn't mean you should avoid closing the transaction because of their situation. Average producers have a bad habit of becoming convinced--sold--on the customer's reasons for not buying and abandon their own belief in their product and company. Fix this one thing and your production will soar, but you will be required to have strategies--see #2 above--to stay in the close. Remember, you don't actually provide a service to your customer until you close the sale.

5. Insist and Get the Close
In The Closer's Survival Guide I talk a lot about how we have all been made to believe that pressure is bad, wrong, rude, and unprofessional. The reality is, pressure is necessary and vital to getting the extra sales closed and removing time from the sales cycle. Pressure makes diamonds after all and I will do anything and everything to close my customer because I believe in my product and offer. When you learn how to perfect the craft of insistence you can actually pressure a customer and they will admire you for it.

If you completely believe in your product, service, and your company you must be willing to apply the right amount of pressure to make the extra sales and earn extra customers. If your purpose and mission are valuable, you have an obligation to insist, and yes, even pressure your buyer. I once had a customer tell me, "are you pressuring me?" At which point I shared, "no, but I am willing to go there because I know this is the best solution for you--now let's do this." Some of my very best customers are one's that I pressured to close.

6. Tie Financial Goals to Closing Sales
In my best-selling book The 10X Rule, I write about why so many people in America are just getting by financially. Did you know that 76% of all Americans are living pay check to pay check? The bottom line is that being average is a failing formula. Just getting by is painful and expensive and you need to knock it off. It is said that 20% of the people are responsible for 80% of the business. I don't know if that is true or not, but I know that just making it doesn't work for me or my family.

If you are struggling with the close, you may need to review your financial goals. Financial goals are tied in with what you want out of this life and when your financial needs are clear you will find yourself closing more sales. Make sure that you're not just making a sales call to make a sales call, but to close the sale. 

7. Train on Becoming a Closing Master
Great athletes know there is a difference between learning, practicing, performing and perfecting. The greats perfect their craft before they bring their game to the stadium. It has been said that it takes 10,000 hours to master any skill. The close is where the sales person is paid. You don't get paid to sell you get paid to close. The basketball player gets paid to make the shot, not just show up on the game. Closing is a skill and it can be developed and crafted. I wrote a training manual titled The Closer's Survival Guide Workbook for professional sales people that want to perfect their closing skills. It is filled with scripts where you can customize your closing techniques to your personal industry.

Don't believe that being a good salesperson takes no effort. For many years I was average and it was painful. The checks were too small and the failures too often. Being average takes more effort than being great. Learn to be great at closing the sale and you will love sales more.

Grant Cardone

Grant Cardone is an American entrepreneur, New York Times best-selling author, speaker, motivator and online sales training expert. Cardone is a respected, highly regarded master salesperson whose passion is to teach people how to sell themselves, their products and services regardless of economic climate. His books, audio packages and seminars provide people of all professional backgrounds with the practical tools necessary to build their own economies towards the path to true freedom.

“Success is your duty, obligation, responsibility.”

Grant urges his followers and clients to make success their duty, responsibility, obligation, and to rise above outdated, unworkable middle-class myths and limitations in order to achieve true freedom for themselves and their families.
His straight-shooting viewpoints on leadership, the economy, small business, retail sales, employment, and headlines have made him a valuable resource for media seeking commentary and insights on real topics that matter.

Grant created Cardone University, a customized sales training program for Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, success-minded individuals, and entrepreneurs.