Flashback: How To Close A Sale - (Increase your closing rate)

0:01Clothes Nan the Barbarian. Clothes but not forgotten. Ooh, they're nice clothes. Today we're going to be talking about closing. But before we talk about that, I want to welcome you. Yes, you sat there in your car wondering how you're going to get that deal over the line. I want to welcome you to another episode of Trench Tips. My name's Zach Thompson and this is my esteemed co-host, the returning new father and openly gay podcast host, it's Mr Jack Frimston. Jack, how are you? I'm very well, I'm very well. Did I ever tell you about the time that I had an interview for an account management role and they said, if you were a wrestler, what would your finishing move be?

0:52And I said, it'd be the clothesline. And I'd just go around clothes and everything. wow didn't get the job didn't get the job well i don't blame you let me ask you a question right before we want to talk about closing want to give the people some tips on closing but let me ask you a question your opinion of closing when you first got into sales what did you think closing was and how do you view it it's got to be hard it's got to be fast it's got to be twisting someone's hand behind their back and making sure that they have no opportunity to say no. The wharf of Wall Street is in the building. Yes, exactly.

1:32I remember an early software sales job that I had, the bit when they said, I don't know if I'm interested, you'll have to persuade me. I would stand up in my chair, out of my chair on my chair rip my shirt off I stopped wandering around like really what I thought was just persuasion mode, it'd be really hard clothes, anything to kind of get it over the line very typical sales strategy and it's only now when our job is booking meetings with people and we're based on those meetings showing up and attending that I realise that doesn't work and when you do that people just don't show up so if we're looking at closing when do you think is the right time to do it what are we looking for to even start that closing process the thing that you're looking for mr thompson is emotion is there some emotion it's just emotion

2:40exactly exactly you're looking for that emotional rant and how do you know you're there well people will say things they'll they'll go on a big monologue and it will have words in it like we need to do something about this we've been looking at this for a little while this has been frustrating me for x amount of time i know we need to do something because of x we're starting to look at this movement and there'll be all this frustration but what you're looking to do do with someone is get them on the roller coaster on the emotional roller coaster and it's your job as it goes up it's going up it's going to drop it's going to drop it's going to come back down to not very emotional you need to close them at the top of that emotional roller coaster So what we're looking for is when they hit the top of that emotional rant, I've got this guy talking to me about pain, about need, I've got to do something.

3:33They sound so motivated. Then I'm going to hit them with my starting closing framework. Closing only works when someone's emotional and it only works when they've had to defend that emotion a little bit. So someone's emotional, Jack, they've listed off to you. And I'll play this out with you, right? um well we just haven't really recovered properly since code i'd love to get back to the glory days that we were in from a new business perspective i just can't seem to get enough meetings in the diary with the right types of people constantly chasing our tail around it is quite frustrating there's been a few dark days along the way so yeah it's something that i need to fix it's that's always on my mind what would you do next i'd want to ask a tricky question something a bit hard-hitting and i'm probably going to preface that tricky question by letting them know or asking for permission to ask that tricky question so yeah okay well zach listen can i ask can i ask a bit of a direct question yeah are you sure i really i've just cold called you i'm not i'm not in the game of upsetting people?

4:50Ask me. I'm going to ask a big open question. When I say open, I mean closed. I'm going to ask a big closed question that's going to get them emotional and I'm going to say something like, have you given up? Beautiful. Beautiful. Now sometimes there's one step before that, before you go with the big direct ask. Because sometimes emotional rants, they don't always have clarity. right and if you're thinking as the therapist you want this person to feel heard first so a great line before this you often hear people say um have you tried anything to fix this right so that might be the one but there's a tendency there to go down a very systems route i don't want someone to be thinking too logically at this point so give me an emotional rant it's a bit all over the place and to give it a bit of clarity i might just lower the voice go into that late night DJ voice.

5:48How long have you felt like this for? When I say that, they're going to say as long as the business has been around or they're going to give real clarity. COVID's a great example. Cost of living's another great example. People will give real clarity to how long this problem's been on the mind for. Once we get that clarity there, so that like real this is a real problem. It's not just a rant. I've not just caught them at a bad time once I've asked that question. Then Jack's point there of the direct question, which might be, have you given up? Again, then I'm going to defend why I haven't given up.

6:24At this point now, I've got enough problem, definitely a problem, and I've got enough motivation. There's definitely clear motivation to go for a close. And Jack, what do you notice when you hear your team or you're on the phone yourself? If you do all the work up front and find out those two things, what does the close typically feel like? It feels like they close themselves. It feels like they're saying, okay, well, what can we do? That's typically the issue, isn't it? When you get to a position where it feels like you're trying to argue to get some time in the diary, something's gone wrong.

6:59There's no emotion. You might have got a problem, but big deal. Like a problem isn't going to book a meeting.

7:07Excuse me, I was coughing. I didn't want to cough. It's okay, thanks. Absolutely. Right, so that's what we're going to do. So the framework, just to go back on this, emotional run. We've started running a remote. I've got them emotional. They're ranting now. They're telling me they're sharing. A bit of clarity. How long have you felt like this for? Direct question. Have you given up? Maybe another example of a direct question. I'm guessing even if there was something that could fix this, you've completely closed your mind off to other opportunities. No, no, no. Yeah, so there's loads of different ways.

7:40I was just being a prospect. Loads of different ways. and then when I get that, you've defended your stance now I can go for a few different closes. What's your favourite? And the simple well, the simplest one the one I really like is if you've got your diary there hmm assumptive people when you when you do that pushback of have you given up people don't just go no they go no and then they tell you why they haven't given up and they really say it all they say all the reasons why they haven't given up and they need to fix something, et cetera, et cetera, and they give you all the reasons. So there's no need to go into a big monologue.

8:19You can just say, okay, well, have you got your diary there? Salespeople overcomplicate it, and when they're going for that close, they want to give you 101 reasons why you're making the right decision and really defend that it's going to be worth it, and it'll be amazing, and we're going to show you how we do this. And all the biases are starting to kick in at that point. and the other thing i want to mention on the close and this is for my maybe my software sellers out there if you're selling software and on the call the prospectors use certain words that you know your software does but you call it something else use their words not those so when you come for that close you might have done the pushback and then you might say well look if I had something that did X, Y and Z that you've just told me about during this call would it be ridiculous to put some time aside?

9:16I love ridiculous Voss it up Voss it up and I think that's the last point around the ask should have a negative frame so Jack what does that mean? So I don't want to say would you be able to, can we I want you to, when I asked you the question I want it to feel like you're answering it in the right way so it might look like is there any reason why we couldn't would it be impossible to and you're gonna go no no no it wouldn't be impossible no no no there's no reason why not and then you'd probably follow up simply with no no no there's no reason why we couldn't do that okay cool have you got your diary there yeah exactly feels like a ridiculous idea too exactly the room to say no that chris voss talks about makes a conversation feel like a very safe place people can tell when they've been forced into something there's a bias called reactance someone feels like i'm being persuaded and they push back and do the top opposite don't be pushy don't be needy if you're struggling to close we used to we used to play a game with some of the team that if you don't feel like they're going to agree to a meeting you can't even ask if you've not got to that point where there's some emotion where you feel like they're actually motivated to do something about this you can't even bring it up because if it's a case of just taking the same scripts and saying like when would be a good time to sit in your diary yeah your books and meetings but they aren't people that are necessarily motivated to solve the problem or people that are going to show up so when people are sales people like oh i booked 32 meetings this month but actually only four attended well what's the point like it's that's not a numbers game think about how you can actually get more people to show up work on a better close get that motivation exactly last honorable mentions don't talk about time specifically can i put 15 minutes in your diary when could we put in half an hour when could we put in an hour discovery call don't use sales terms or talk about the time specifically don't talk about why not um well time it's just it it it brings it back down to reality brings it crashing back down oh um can we just get a quick 30 minutes in your diary like it's just like a is there any reason why we couldn't sit down and explore this further you don't need to bring up the aspect of time you're in this emotional conversation don't make it logical um i would also say we were talking about this but like i'm gonna sit you down with my sales manager my ae my sales director they don't care they're emotional they want to solve a problem i don't care if i'm on the phone to a receptionist saying yeah i'm gonna blah blah blah like it doesn't matter like as long as i'm being seen that's all i care about i don't care if it's dr bob and he's got two degrees who yeah do you know i mean just get me in yeah exactly and then the only other one with a nice demo people don't hear the word demo and think that sounds absolutely great they think that sounds long and boring and like someone talking at me so don't use the word demo the thing that you're getting to would it be ridiculous to put some time aside would it be outrageous to put some time in the diary that's what you're looking for.

12:42So there is some tips on closing. I hope that helps. And remember, if you can't close a door, don't close.