The Give More Than You Take Close

Last month, while teaching an all day sales training seminar in Orlando, someone asked me if there was going to a section specifically dedicated to closing techniques.  In fact, I often get this question or one similar to it. Everyone wants to know the magic phrase or technique for closing the sale. There are entire books written by a lot of sales trainers with varying backgrounds on the topic of closing. So many in fact that most “closes” have been given common names such as:

One of my favorite sales trainers, Tom Hopkins spends a lot of time scripting each common technique in “How to Master the Art of Selling Anything”. When I first went into sales, I studied and tried to learn these techniques word for word. But the truth is, I was never comfortable with any of them. Maybe it was just me but they felt scripted and unnatural to me.

Don’t get me wrong, as I review my own presentation, I do see elements of some of these techniques in my presentation which may help account for my consistent 80-90% closing ratio. But actually making a determination of which close I should be using in a given sales presentation just never felt natural to me. Maybe it’s because I’ve always tried to treat my customers the way I would want to be treated. I can’t stand it when I am in the market for something, especially a big ticket item, and the sales person starts using technique on me. Yet, these techniques obviously work because there are many sales people out there learning and using them and people are still buying things. So I have to admit that I could be wrong about all of this. But I’ll also state emphatically that I don’t think I am and thousands of customers, my closing ratio and the closing ratio of the sales professionals I’ve trained seem to support my opinion on the matter.

Closing techniques are hogwash…all except one.

Give More Than You Take

You won’t find a chapter on closing in my book “Flowing to Success (A Cheesy Title of an Excellent Book for the Water Treatment Sales Professional)” That’s because the entire book tells the reader how to close. It’s really very simple. If you believe that you are giving more than you are taking from your customers, you will never have a problem asking them to allow you to serve them.

Let’s imagine you are driving down a baron highway one evening just before dusk in an area where there is no cell phone signal. You are several miles from the next exit when you pass an obviously broken down car. A few hundred yards further is a young woman walking in the direction of the exit. Would you be comfortable pulling over and asking her if she wanted a ride to the exit? I believe most of the people reading this would likely have the desire to help this person without asking for anything in return. But the question is, would the woman accept the offer? There are certainly things that may increase or decrease the likelihood of this. If you are driving a windowless van and you seem threatening, she may decide it is better to walk to the exit. On the other hand, if you are in a company wrapped car and you seem clean cut and sincere, she may be more inclined to accept. Heck, it may be as simple as you being a woman yourself. But the bottom line is that if you are genuine and sincere, all you can do is offer to help. You can do things help present yourself as genuine and sincere but ultimately, it’s up to her whether she accepts your offer to help or not.

This is exactly what I think sales should be about. In a sales presentation, we have to first determine what the customer’s needs are. Once we have done so and we are able to give them more value than the money we are asking for then closing should be nothing more than a sincere offer to help them. Not every person is going to accept your offer but that’s their right. If there are more people declining your offer than accepting, I’d recommend taking a look in the mirror to see if you are doing something that is making them not believe you are sincere or I’d look at what I was offering to make sure I am giving more than I’m taking.

This is less of a technique or strategy than an attitude. Approach every sales situation with a desire to help and your customers will either accept your offer or they won’t. If you find yourself nervous about your prices, either figure out how to justify your price through intangible offering or go sell something else.  Please, for the sake of our industry and the sales profession, don’t think the answer to selling a high ticket item is to trick or manipulate the customer into buying something. There are enough people out there doing this already and it why consumers mistrust sales people in general.

I doubt you’ll find the “Give More Than You Take” close in any books out there but I’m confident that if you try it, you’ll not only see incredible results in your closing ratio but you’ll also feel really good about what you do for a living.

Kelly Thompson MWS, CI