Why You’re Not Closing Sales #211

In this solo episode Pat talks about the Sideways deal and why you’re not closing sales. The reasons for this is not at all what you think.

In fact, it’s not so much you can’t close a deal. It’s more a case of you’ve not fully qualified the prospect. If you had properly discovered the prospects situation (their pains and desires), you would have noticed the following:

They have more pressing issues. Now they may like what you have, but they don’t HAVE to have it. They may have more pressing issues at this moment. It’s not time to close
The seller (YOU) hasn’t fully explained the benefits. If you don’t frame your product or service in the context of the buyer, you don’t have a chance of closing. Focus on the buyers motivations.

Buyer Motivations

Although it changes from business to business, on the whole buyers are motivated by:

Higher Profit
Higher Revenue
Lower Cost
Higher Quality
Lower Frustration
Faster

If you’ve NOT explained your product or service in this context, you’ve NOT done your job.

When you take the time to learn the hopes, dreams, pain, suffering and desires of a prospect, you will find out if they NEED what you’re selling. This is the thing, if people ache for what you’re selling, they will buy.

Focus on prospects that appreciate your solution. Stop wasting time on prospects that will never buy. Use your time efficiently and have lots of prospects in the sales funnel. Work lots of deals and expect each will take time to close. yet with a steady flow of deals, you’ll constantly be earning new business.

Past Episodes Mentioned

In this episode we mentioned the following past episodes. Listen today!

How To Qualify Prospects using the Questions Listen here

In this episode you will learn how to use the SORT method for qualifying prospective clients

Story questions
Obstacles questions
Ramification questions
Transformation questions

Download The SORT Method Exercise to help you create your own custom set of SORT questions.

Five Ways to be a Qualifying Sales Olympian Listen here

Not all athletes can compete in the Olympics, only the very best. To become a participant, athletes must qualify. This qualification generally demands entrants to complete a competition within some time, distance, height, or score. The same thing is true of prospective clients.

Master Your Cold Calling Fear With This 4 Step Script Listen here

Let’s walk through the dialogue step by step and explain what’s going on. Each statement I made has a reason. Notice that most of them are questions. The entire script is choreographed with the following goals:

Connect with the prospect so they agree to have a conversation
Discover their pain or desires
Assess if they are qualified to buy my products or services
Show how my products/services address the problems and desire they just mentioned
Get them to agree to a follow up meeting ie. get an appointment.
The goal is to set up an appointment and to do this whole call in just a few minutes.