Closing Sales Techniques – 3 Simple Tests to Tell if You Were Listening in a Sales Call

In, Close Deals Faster: The 15 Shortcuts of the Asher Sales Method, I cover the importance of listening when on a sales call. Closing sales techniques depend on having enough information to strike the right chord with the buyer.

Chapter five is full of tips on how to become a perfect listener. If you haven’t read it, I hope you get a chance to do so soon. For those who have, the following will be a quick refresher of the content of that chapter. You can mentally ask yourself these three questions as a test of whether or not you are truly listening on your next sales calls.

Did you ask questions?

Our tendency as human beings is to talk excessively. In salespeople, this manifests as endless blabbing about the capabilities of their products or services without letting buyers get a word in edge-wise. This might work for a carnival barker, but doesn’t cut it when selling complex B2B solutions.

After your next sales call, ask yourself if you asked enough questions – whether you closed the deal or not. If the buyer did most of the talking, you probably did. If you did most of the talking, strive to develop better guiding questions for your next sales call and use them. You need to have a few open-ended questions in your pocket to use at all times, just like your closing sales techniques.

Here’s a good one: “What do you feel is the biggest challenge holding your business back at the moment?”

Did you take notes?

Next, did you remember to ask permission to take notes, and take them? Or did you rely on your memory to record all the buyer said in response to your questions?

Taking notes not only proves to the buyer that you are a professional, but these notes can be very valuable at some future moment when trying to upsell or cross-sell this buyer. There can be details both you and the buyer end up forgetting but which can be brought up again later if you keep notes.

Did you summarize the buyers needs and have him or her agree that you got it right?

Here is a big one. Your closing sales techniques won’t work if you don’t have the buyer’s needs correct. By restating the buyer’s needs in summary form, you a) prove that you were paying attention b) confirm what you will try to solve for the buyer c) get the buyer to agree with you. Getting minor agreements along the way to the close is an old trick to get the buyer used to saying “Yes” to you.

If they agree you understand their needs, and you demonstrate that you can fulfill them, they have very little grounds to object. You will usually then come down to price, which is an easy one to overcome for any sales pro.

If you are not sure how to do any of the above or how to overcome price objections, then you need sales training. Contact us to get started!