Top 6 Closing Sales Techniques You Might Want to Use Next

While it’s true that there are many fish in the sea, it won’t actually guarantee you a successful catch. Similar to the ever-growing world of sales, having thousands of leads doesn’t always mean thousands of successful deals. At the end of day, it still boils down to the number of sales you have closed. This is where the need for effective closing sales techniques come into play. 

Although there’s no actual handbook that will give you the most efficient way to close a deal, there’s a list of tips and tricks from top sales professionals that can surely help you turn prospects into buying customers. 

Powerful Closing Sales Techniques from Top Sales Professionals

Increase your close ratio through the help of these amazing closing sales techniques below:

1. Communicate with potential customers at their preferred channels.

Most often than not, people tend to trust brands they have spoken to or interacted with a couple of times. As such, constant communication especially across different channels is essential in closing deals. By regularly communicating with your prospects, you keep your brand the top choice in the mind of your potential customers. Thus, giving you a higher chance of closing a deal. 

Reach out to your prospects on their preferred channels. This way, you’ll give them the opportunity to decide when and where to engage. In most cases, prospects prefer to communicate using their phone, email, LinkedIn as well as social media channels.   

2. Create connections by asking the right questions early on.

Now that you have already started a conversation with your prospects, the next thing you need to do is to find out whether or not your brand is what they need. There are times when leads aren’t specifically looking for something that you can offer, and that’s okay. The best thing you can do is to determine customer fit during the early stages of sales. This will help save time and energy for you and your prospects. 

But how exactly do you gauge customer fit? You can start by asking the right sales questions. These include:

“What are you planning to accomplish in the next month/quarter/year?

“What prevents you from reaching those goals?” 

“What keeps you from pursuing the same solution in the past?”

“Is there anyone else you think I should connect with?” 

In the end, what you need is to understand the prospect’s goals, know their pain points and ultimately, communicate with the decision-maker for further conversations. 

3.​ Trust yourself. Assume you’ll close the deal.

One of the most popular and most efficient techniques is the assumptive close. It is a strategy where you speak with leads as though you have already closed the deal. This technique shows your prospects you’re confident that they’re gonna make a purchase. 

Make questions and remarks that will make it seem like the sale is a done deal. Ask them questions that will eventually lead them to agree with you and proceed to the next step or even better, close the deal. 

The assumptive close technique leverages confidence and positive thinking, making it a great strategy for salespeople. By assuming the sale is as good as done, leads are likely to adapt to your confidence leaving any signs of hesitations behind. 

4. Be helpful.

As much as you would like to close a deal, being overly excited isn’t always a good thing. In most cases, salespeople tend to be assertive, pushing prospects forward to steps they aren’t ready to take. Unfortunately, most leads today are smarter and more sensitive. They know when someone’s only making an effort because of a sales quota. 

One of the most efficient ways is to listen more and talk less. Show authenticity by listening intently to what your customers are saying and then asking questions related to what they have said. 

Indeed, focusing on helping your prospects rather than actually pushing them to make a purchase will help your brand create better and more genuine connections. 

5. Find ways to turn your avid customers into brand advocates.

Leveraging relationships with your loyal customers is another effective strategy to close a sale. Your avid customers love your products or services enough that they are naturally great at talking about them with others. 

The first thing you need to do is to find potential brand advocates through various options such as advocacy programs, social media engagements, positive reviews online as well as insights from your customer relationship management (CRM) tool. 

With the list of brand advocates you now have, the next thing to do is start creating mutually beneficial relationships. Your advocates can help with testimonials, brand awareness campaigns and even one-one conversations with your prospects. In exchange, they can get perks such as free products or network opportunities.  

6. Make sure to create a mutual action plan with your leads.

Mutual action plans (MAP), also known as execution plans, go-live plans, or mutual close plans, are basically a document that helps you and your prospect buyer work together to come up with a mutually beneficial solution. The MAP answers two essential questions:

1. Who needs to do what to make this deal happen?
2. When do they need to do it to make this sale a success?

MAPs create shared accountability that can result in a collaborative effort, keeping you and your leads on track. Additionally, MAPs often build a foundation of trust early on, giving your prospects the idea that you actually know what you’re doing. 

Key Takeaway

Not every lead will instantly convert into a buying customer, and again, that’s okay. While there are still a lot of sales techniques that can help you close more deals, there will still come a time when someone will say no despite your efforts. Rather than taking these experiences negatively, use them to figure out what else you can improve.