How often have you encountered a situation where you thought you had the customer but lose them eventually during the closing stage?
The closing stage is crucial for both the salesperson and the customer. It’s the break or make a moment in sales.
This moment is the final verdict determining whether or not your techniques have worked for closing the deal.
Losing a deal at the closing stage means losing a revenue opportunity and also months of time invested for that deal.
Here’s a comprehensive guide to how not to lose a sales deal in the closing stage.
Why Sales Is Crucial For Your Business?
Your business depends on the measure of how well your sales team is working.
Most business owners have specific strategies for each sale and marketing channel.
For instance, online sales funnel could sell products without a sales agent. However, the efficiency of fulfilling the order is what helps seal the deal.
The only things that matter are: Are you generating leads? Are you making sales? And what’s next?
You need marketing for the first, sales strategy for the second, and a lead management system to manage the leads you acquire. Business owners and entrepreneurs will always have a unique view of sales.
There will debate about what level of prominence sales has in a business and how much emphasis there should be on the team.
Whether you see sales as the highest of the high or just a regular part of business, there is no denying the importance sales have on your business.
Importance Of Sales Deal Closure
Practically, the sales process is a lot more complicated than it appears.
About 92% of the salespersons give up following-up after four rejections, and 80% of the sales require 5 follow-ups before closing the deal.
Losing a deal at the closing stage can destroy the chances of business revenue. A lot of skills go into a sales agent, the ability to listen, acquiring information through questioning, overcoming objections, and negotiating.
But having all these skills becomes useless if you’re unwilling to ask sales questions to your clients.
Read: Relevant Questions to Ask During Sales Discover Call
One of the biggest mistakes that a sales agent make is not understanding the internal issue that is driving the need for your solution.
Both sides need to agree on a specific timeframe centered on the event. Otherwise, the prospect will have second thoughts about purchasing your product or service.
Techniques to Implement While Closing a Sales Deal
48% of sales calls end without an attempt to close the deal. Your prospects demand attention and your techniques will decide whether you are going to close the deal or not.
Here’s how you can utilize some techniques to close the deal.
Personalized Selling Strategies
The one-size-fits-all arrangement doesn’t work in closing a deal. Prospects can change their mind and plummet in and out of the sales funnel at any phase of their purchasing journey.
Advanced buyers are expecting a personalized buying process that gives them more opportunities to think about their needs and difficulties they are facing.
Your sales agents should know their prospects before talking to them. They should track their progress through the sales funnel and guide them through the buying process.
Understanding the context of their pain points and expectations makes the sales process easier and gives them the chance to close the deal effectively. This also opens the door for customer retention.
Ask The Right Questions
A bad question can break the sales cycle even before it starts. Find out how useful your product or service will be for your prospect.
Consider their plans in terms of teams or businesses. Try and discover what problems they are currently facing and give them solutions.
Having a proper idea about the questions you need to ask makes your product or service seem more appealing.
Try to keep your questions to the point and don’t hard-sell.
Sell It To The Decision Maker
Sales are getting progressively unpredictable, especially B2B sales. Even though there are numerous individuals in the buying process there will be some who are encountering similar pain points in the business process.
Sales agents must use this data to their advantage, must direct their discussion in that way so that they can progress the deal through different stages of the pipeline.
Find out who has the final purchasing authority and try to understand their requirements and pain points.
Point Out The Correct Problem
Sales agents often make the mistake of stretching the conversation and give lesser time to the prospect to address their issues.
Today’s buyers are more proactive, they don’t like to deal with a salesperson that is just going to treat them as data in the sheet. They want their pain points to be highlighted and challenges to overlook.
You need to keep your focus on helping these prospects rather than pushing them through the sales funnel.
Don’t Try to Close Too Early
Your first call to the client shouldn’t be about closing the deal. If you pitch your product in the first call itself it becomes overwhelming for the prospect.
Never pitch your product or service without knowing what your prospect’s needs are. It’s understandable that you would want to close the deal as soon as possible but that doesn’t necessarily mean you get hasty about it.
Trying to close a deal too soon could make things more difficult for you in the further sales process.
How Not To Lose Leads In The Closing Process
As mentioned above, you need to implement these techniques for a hassle-free closing process.
You need to ask them questions about their requirements, challenges, and pain points. If these questions get answered, it’s difficult to progress the deal through the sales pipeline.
The solution is simple, to close a deal you shouldn’t think of closing the deal but to help the prospect who’s in difficulty or in need of something that might help him or her.
Remember that being a sales agent doesn’t only mean to bring sales but to also build meaningful customer relationships. It can only be possible by creating bonds that will not wither in the long run.
You can implement this follow-up email strategy to move closer to grabbing a deal.
- Email one: Send out relevant sales content according to your prospect’s interest.
- Email two: Share certain useful information about your product with success stories.
- Email three: Share a link to your product blog or video that shows your product’s functionalities
- Email four: Send out a feedback email and ask the prospect to rate certain issues he might be facing.
- Email five: Based on their revert, share your demo schedule with them.
- Email six: Share the link of your calendar and book an online or one-on-one.
Conclusion
Closing a deal is a part of your business workflow, a very important one.
Being skilled at sales closures is arguably is one of the most important techniques a sales agent can master.
Getting new customers onboard and upselling or cross-selling the existing accounts is the best way to not losing a significant amount of customers.
By opting for a CRM alternative you can create and manage your contact data in a centralized system.
You can use the workflows to automate your most manual tasks and focus more on important matters at hand.
