What is closing sales? It’s closing a sale in style and converting a prospect into a customer. That’s what happens during a closing. 😉
Discover the 9 tips to a successful closing sales and how to apply it to reap the rewards of your hard work: signing new clients!
Closing Sales: the Definition
Closing sales, is the last step in your prospecting funnel. 🤝🏼
“Closed” is an English term meaning “finished.” As you can imagine, it’s an American business term.
The principle is simple, it is about how to close a deal, usually by phone or face to face. 📞 This kind of practice does not correspond to all the markets, generally when you have salesmen who make “phoning” it is because you sell expensive tools and services, and that you wish to offer a quality service to your customers.
You know they won’t go through with the purchase if they aren’t reassured during the sales cycle first. 👀
The 9 Techniques to Successfully Close a Sale!
Signing a contract can be time-consuming and tedious. Nevertheless, there are a few tips to improve this and increase your chances of a successful closing. Let’s not wait any longer, here we go with the 9 tips! 💖
1) Understand the 4 stages of closing sales
Let’s start with the first tip and not the least, which is to understand the closing process from start to finish.
For the closing to work, the sales person must know the offer or product inside out to be able to respond to all objections with predefined effective sales arguments. It is also necessary to know how to evaluate the right moment to propose the purchase. As long as there is an outstanding question, it is better to postpone the closing time, even if it means rescheduling an appointment.
💡 Be careful, if the closing of sales has not been done, you absolutely must leave with a date and a slot for a new appointment. Otherwise, you have a good chance of losing the client.
So, timing is everything. 😜
#1. Attracting your customer
In order to make a successful marketing funnel, you must first have attracted your future customers to you. To do this, you will use referencing, advertising, social networks, for example. You will also go to trade shows or participate in webinars. Basically, we will count all the actions that make your prospects come to you. 🧲
#2. Collect data
Probably the most important step of your sales training, it is to collect data on your leads. This information is going to be crucial and will help you know as much as possible about your prospects. During the closing, you will use this information to argue, so you can insert all this information in your CRM. 📚
#3. Make contact
In this step, you’ll really identify the customer’s need. Practice active listening, rephrase his need, position yourself as a consultant using the consultative selling technique. You must know your product by heart 💟 and know how to argue all possible objections (including price, time and complexity).
#4. Conclude the sale
Last step, it’s about the conclusion of the sale and therefore, to get your sales contract signed, to close, to make closing or to realize a closing sales success, that is to say to know when is the right time to propose to the prospect to go to the purchase. 💰
2) Interpret the customer’s actions
When you interact with your customer, they may react in a certain way and emit physical signals, for example. These signals can manifest themselves in different ways, it is up to you to analyze them. Nevertheless, we give you some examples! ⬇️
Little communication
If you see that the customer is not very receptive, that he often crosses his arms, that he often nods his head when you talk to him or that he doesn’t talk much, unfortunately, it means that he is not excited about your product or service… Don’t panic, keep being positive and maybe offer him a compromise or an alternative to his problem, you never know! 😇
Repeated questions
Conversely, if your prospect asks many questions about details of the offer, then your prospect is showing that he is really interested in your offer or product and wants to go further.
Remember to improve your sales strategy thanks to this article! 👈
Negotiation
The customer may want to negotiate or receive a gesture from you, this indicates that he is interested in your offer! You are well on your way to your closing good sales! 🥰
3) Ask the right questions
Selling is not a monologue, I’m not teaching you anything. It is an exchange, with questions! And, during your conversations, you can totally ask certain questions that may unlock some of your potential customers’ blocking points. 🔓
Know that open-ended questions allow you to “force” the prospect’s hand and get answers, so don’t hesitate to use them!
Here’s a sample of questions you can ask! 👇🏼
Questions to ask to make your closing sales strategy 🚀 :
- What’s holding you back?
- What is your budget?
- What do you think about it?
- What is stopping you from buying?
4) Sum up the exchange
To make a positive assessment, you must, on the one hand, list all the key arguments and customer benefits that the prospect will have confirmed himself during the sales meeting.
Then, remind him/her how the tool responds to the issues he/she has mentioned. 👀 Basically, you help the prospect to realize that you have answered an objection and that the purchase is therefore the logical continuation of the interview.
To illustrate my points, here’s a b2b example:
👨🏫 Example in B2b:
“Listen, if I understand your need correctly: you need a visual and easy-to-use prospecting software that you can use in a team and thanks to which you can create lead scoring and track your KPI’s ultra easily? Waalaxy does all that, and it also automatically enriches your database. “
5) Propose a similar offer
If you have the possibility, propose an alternative to your prospect so that he has the choice between several possibilities. When we have a choice, we are tempted to give a positive answer, take advantage of it! Here is a small example 😇.
You are a sales consulting man in a hairdressing store, and you are trying to sell a whole range of hair for your customers. They hesitate because they have a budget that cannot be exceeded. You then propose a similar range that corresponds to their needs but at a lower cost.
6) Show that the offer is temporary
If your customer is taking a long time to decide and is hesitating on your offer, don’t hesitate to create the request by telling them that the offer has a deadline and that if they take a long time to decide, then the offer will expire. The famous phrase “do it before it’s too late” makes sense 🥰.
Let’s take the example of a hair store: 💇🏼♀️
Your customer is hesitating to buy her products from you or your competitor, show that there is a -15% offer only valid for 5 days.
7) Offer an incentive bonus
Is your customer still hesitating? To convince the customer, make them feel that time is running out. Give yourself a deadline. If it takes him too long to decide, the bonus will be irrelevant. As a result, your offer becomes more valuable because it becomes rare. 🦋
But still be careful with these sales management techniques, if your customer was not ready to buy or feels oppressed, he will run away during the pressure shot.
👩🏫 B2b example:
“If you walk away with the CRM today, I can create the referral code for you, and you can refer all your team members. It will save you two months of subscription. On the other hand, the code is only valid for 24 hours, so, what’s still keeping you waiting? “
8) Sell the right products to the right people
You’ll never see this argument in any other article online, yet for me, it is paramount. Don’t sell to sell, sell because you have the solution to your prospect’s problem. If you don’t have it, or too little of it, offer them another product, even a competitor.
This will save you a lot of unhappy customers who will give you bad publicity and will not be loyal at all in the long run.
Remember that it is much easier and cheaper to keep a customer than to find another one, so work on customer loyalty and try to resell products to your existing customers or their relatives.
💡 Here are a few extra tips:
- Offer a free referral promo code if a loved one buys a kitchen from you too.
- Ask for customer interviews with your CRM’s top users,
- Create trust, and boost your brand image.
9) Give out your contact information
This may seem trivial to you but, don’t hesitate to leave your contact information or your business card with your future customer because if ever the one if changes his mind along the way or wants to exchange more, he will have this way to communicate, so don’t hesitate 😇.
Top 3 Tools to Seal the Deal in your Sales Process
All the tasks we just discussed above to close the deal take a lot of time to set up, not to mention the management and follow-up. That’s why, in the past few years, sales metrics tools have come out to make these tasks easier. 🥰
Obviously, there are tools to improve your closing, and here are our top 3! 😄
Use a prospecting CRM
Prospecting, or, the ultimate guide for finding customers. A prospecting tool like Waalaxy will allow you to: 👽
- Find your prospects,
- Get in touch,
- Make appointments,
- Follow up,
- Close sales,
- And finally, build loyalty.
There are many CRM tools that can be linked to Waalaxy, such as Aircalln, or HubSpot.
If you want to check out our guide to the 12 best sales prospecting tools, it’s right here! ⬅️
Enrich your database
Another way to succeed in your closing sales marketing is to increase your prospecting database because the more customers you have, the more positive closing rate you will have.
That’s why we suggest you use our little tool: Waalaxy. 👽
It is a small Chrome extension that will allow you to do the following in the professional social network, LinkedIn:
- Create qualified prospects lists, based on a LinkedIn search,
- Find your prospects according to personalized scenarios,
- Collect email addresses and phone numbers of your potential customers,
- Send follow-up messages thanks to the Waalaxy Inbox.
- And much more!
Want to know more about Waalaxy and it’s cool features? Click the button below! 👇🏼
Record your phone calls for practice
Remember when you had orals in middle school or high school, and sometimes you would record yourself to see how you spoke, and how long it took?
Well, here it’s the same principle! There are sales call recording and conversational analysis tools available to help you self-train in conversations.
For example, you can use the Modjo tool, which offers the following solutions:
- Onboarding,
- Sales Enablement,
- Coaching,
- Sales analysis.
What is the closing sales business?
The digital world has brought out new vocations and offers great professional opportunities, including becoming a “closer.”
Simply put, this is the person who will be in charge of approaching the customer, identifying their needs, proposing a solution and finally, most importantly, successfully closing the sale and signing the contract.
Below, we will talk about these last aspects in more detail. 🥰
What is closing sales in b2b?
Did you know that the closing business can be practiced in Btob, let’s take a closer look: 🔎
- B2b closing sales: Purchase of an expensive and customizable sales process software such as SalesForce, an event service, renovation of the premises, purchase of industrial machinery. Closing is often done by phone to reduce costs, or is sometimes done at trade shows.
In both cases, the steps of the sale are always the same, you have to structure the sales pitch:
- Approach the customer, (making contact).
- Identify the customer’s needs.
- Propose a solution.
- Respond to objections.
- Conclude or negotiate the sale (Closing).
- Signing the contract and ensuring follow-up.
With this framework, no doubt, you will succeed to close deals!
What is the salary of a closer?
Since the goal of this job is to close the sale, the closer takes a commission of between 30% and 50% on each sale. On average, a closer can earn between €3,000 and €5,000 per month. 💰
What training should I take to improve at closing sales?
In reality, we are all a bit of closers, we approach customers and want them to sign in the end, right? 😇 Nevertheless, closing sales comes in 3 categories, and we’ll take a closer look at that! 👀
1. The commercial closing
The most known and not the least, the commercial closing. You know when you go to a dealer to buy a car, and you address a person for information, and he accompanies you from A to Z in your approach? That’s a closer.
To achieve commercial closing sales, we advise you to attend a business school to have the basics, but also in inbound marketing and management.
2. The online closing
If you are a freelancer, for example, you are already doing closing sales because you want to have customers and get a contract with them! For digital closing, we advise you to go to a digital marketing and communication school.
3. Closing sales in real estate
This one is a little more delicate because you have to know how to sell a property that is not yours. The real estate market is tough, and you have to be imaginative to succeed in projecting your future buyer in his future home. In this case, we advise you to go to a dedicated school to become a real estate agent.
Conclusion: Common Sales Closing Technique
Finally, what is the closing sales?
It is a technique that allows to close more deals. It is usually done by phone and marks the transformation of the prospect into a client. 📞
There are several ways to end a closing: create a sense of urgency argument, the offer of a bonus, the reformulation of the need and the response to it.
This is the final step in the sales promise process. To get there, you absolutely must follow the 4 fundamental steps of selling, which are:
- Attract. 🧲
- Collect. 📇
- Contact. 🤳🏼
- Conclude. 🤝🏼
Now, with the 9 tips we just shared with you, you should become a closing professional! 😏
Frequently Asked Questions
Don’t go away so fast, we still have a few questions left in resource, let’s go! 😉
Who needs a closer?
Many companies need a closer to manage the sales force pitch in B2b prospecting, this is an experienced sales person who will know how to handle the art of words to reassure the future buyer.
Generally, companies that hire closers sell expensive offers or services and the competition is quite tough, for example:
- 🚗 Car dealerships,
- 🛫 Custom travel agencies,
- 🥳 Business events,
- 🗿 Wholesale sales,
- 🏺 Interior decorators,
- 🎰 Industrial machinery sales,
- ☀️ Solar panel sales.
Is closing a job of the future?
In a commercial era where the buying process is becoming more and more personalized and where competition is increasingly high (many new companies are being created), convincing customers is becoming an art. 🎨
The job of a closer can really make the difference in a company, it allows establishing a relationship of trust with its customers thanks to the values transmitted by the closer. 🤝
To be part of these closers capable of succeeding in sales by putting forward the human aspect, it is advisable to follow a commercial training or directly a closing course.
There you go, no need to ask yourself the question “what is closing sales?” you can succeed in your closing with confidence. See you soon! 🥰