The Sale's Closed When the Sale's Closed
Hamish Knox
Helping entrepreneurs sustainably scale their sales so they can exit for their number, not the number they're told to take
Picture you and your new client shaking hands over your newly signed agreement. In your mind the sale's closed, but just like how your prospect's "yes" is different from your "yes," the sale might not be closed in the mind of your new client.
Humans fear death, taxes and change. No matter what you're selling you're selling change whether it's from doing nothing (e.g. never worked with a marketing consultant) or from an incumbent vendor. Even if your new client spent most of your discovery meetings spewing venom at their current vendor there's still a part of them that thinks "better to stay with the devil you know."
David Sandler built a step in his system to address this normal human tendency, the "Post Sell." The post sell step has two parts. First to address buyer's remorse and second to set expectations on both sides for an ongoing, mutually profitable relationship. The second part we'll tackle in a separate article.
To address the first part, buyer's remorse follow these four steps.
- Use a transition phrase - jumping to step two is a rapport killer and the question you'll ask will make you feel awkward so a transition phrase like, "Client, before we wrap up may I ask you a question that makes me feel a little awkward?" By putting the emotion on you you trigger your new client's social animal instincts to help a fellow human so they'll likely say "yes."
- Ask a gutsy question - your new client isn't thinking about backing out now because they're so happy to have found a solution to their problem(s). Those reasons will come up after you leave unless you address them now by asking something like, "what's going to cause this to go sideways after I leave?" Your new client may respond with "nothing," because their still high on having a resolution to the problem(s) they brought you. In that case tell a third party story about a time that a deal did go sideways or bring up their incumbent vendor if you earned your new client's business from someone else. Bringing up your competitor increases your credibility because a small part of your new client's brain was already thinking about how to address firing their incumbent.
- Rehearse with your new client - by asking them "what will you say/do when <BLANK> happens?" <BLANK> being whatever you brought up up in step two. By "rehearsing" with your new client you focus their mind on that behavior instead of leaving them open to a final plea from their current provider.
- Post sell the post sell - by restating your new client's commitment in your terms. For example, "so when you say that there's 'no way that you're cancelling'" that means that you'll issue a P.O. before the end of business tomorrow, I'll pass your order to Production and we'll ship it out before the deadline we discussed?" By restating their commitment on your terms you reduce the potential for really awkward conversations with your new client in the very near future when you do something they didn't expect or they don't do something you expected them to do.
Even if you follow the steps above in a gentle, conversational manner it doesn't mean that you'll prevent back outs 100% of the time. After all we're still selling to humans who will have circumstances change outside of their control or not share all of the facts of their situation. Not post selling though increases your chances of going on an emotional roller coaster dealing with back outs more often than you'd care to and if your new client was going to back out anyway you probably want to know that now while you're in front of them with a chance to save your sale.
Until next time... go sell something.