Tips to improve Your Close Rate
Many Managers have approached me recently, all with a similar problem – “my salespeople are just unable to close the sale”.
Hubspot conducted a survey on the average close rate in different industries. (USA study)
20%+ arts & entertainment, corporate office, industrial, internet & telecom.
15%+ insurance, hospitality, automotive & marketing.
How does your sales Team stack up, against these averages?
Here are some tips & techniques to help lift your own company’s close rate.
1. Never open with your offering
Truth is that Customers don’t care about your marvelous products or services.
They simply want to know how they will benefit them.
As over 90% of Sellers fall into this trap, by concentrating on THEM, you differentiate yourself immediately, & will gain their attention.
The answer is NOT to focus on yourself, but entirely on the Customer & their needs.
When they see the benefits, your offering will do for them, they will be far more inclined to give you their trust & therefore, their business.
Salespeople should NOT sell – but create an environment for the Buyer to make the right buying decision.
2. Thirst for knowledge
The real professional Seller ensures that they learn everything they can about their products & offering & what they will do to benefit a Customer.
But that knowledge is just the opener.
The best Seller will also learn all they can about their Customer’s business & their Customers’.
Only when you are armed with this knowledge, can you provide an intelligent solution to a Customer’s challenges.
3. Ask & share
Even though, through good pre-call planning, preparation & your own experience, you will have gained a good idea of his challenges, even before the interaction, NEVER assume.
Unpack his wants & needs via asking good, relevant questions.
Not only will your understanding of their business & industry impress them, they will be building trust in you, through the questioning process.
A good doctor first finds out what is wrong with you, before prescribing medicine – the professional sales call follows the same process.
4. Never tell all
Sellers often get carried away in the excitement of the sale & blurt out all their benefits.
The net result is you end up baffling the Customer, with information overload.
Have you ever fed ducks in a pond?
You don’t toss the whole packet of feed into the water, in one go – no we feed them little titbits, one at a time.
And how do the ducks react? With huge excitement & chatter.
This is exactly how your Customer will behave when you feed them with one piece of valuable information, at a time.
It gives your input, time to be absorbed & converted into an answer to his needs, in his own mind.
5. Quantify
Something most salespeople lack, is business acumen.
Just as important in learning about your products & your Customer’s business, so is it crucial to apply yourself to learn acumen.
Through your ability of showing your Customer the value in Rands & cents, will surely convince him to support your offering.
6. Inclusive selling
In every step of the process, draw your Customer into the solution building process.
He has to believe, it to be his ideas………………….
You are merely the catalyst feeding him the business intelligence enabling him to make the buying decision.
Motto – if you help your Customer win, you win!
7. ASK
Why is it, when we get to the delicate point of finalizing the deal, so many Sellers fall down – we fail to nail the sale!
“Ask, & thou shalt receive”, is most relevant here!
Happy selling - & CLOSING MORE DEALS!
Richard
Good reminder of what we should be doing, thanks Richard