You’ve just made a stellar presentation to an ideal prospect. A spectacular display of facts, figures, projections, and plans. You are ready to take the next step, but is your prospect? You attempt to close with surgical precision and they give you the all-too-familiar – let me think about it.
There are endless closing techniques. The assumptive close, the reverse close, the yes-man close (series of “yes” questions), etc. We’re sure you’ve heard them all. But most are outdated, transparent to the prospect and quite frankly - reek of the proverbial salesman. Even using the word “closing technique” makes most of us squirm.
Instead of using an old-school closing method, let’s think about how our prospect (and the general population) really makes decisions, and meet them on their level. The truth is, we make decisions based mostly on emotions, not logic. Neuroscience has proved that we make decisions based on our gut feeling and use facts to substantiate our choice. Why not ask the prospect a question to talk about just that - their emotions. One of the most important phrases you’ll ever use at the close of a meeting is…
“How do you feel about this?”
We all know the sale is not won or lost with the perfect closing line. The sale is made early on by asking the right questions and truly understanding our prospect. That said, the right closing line can be the catalyst for a deal moving forward.
Try several variations of closing language until you find your style:
- “At this point, how do you feel about where we’re headed?”
- “Now that we’ve gotten to this point, what’s on your mind?”
- “How comfortable are you with what we’ve discussed here?”
When you can get to the bottom of the prospects decision making psyche and understand their driving emotions – you’re in. But your approach must be genuine. Your objective is not to convince a prospect to doing business with you. Instead, make an effort to truly understand their feelings and thought process, so you can be helpful in their decision making process.
Stephen Boswell and Kevin Nichols are thought-leaders and coaches with The Oechsli Institute, a firm that does ongoing research and coaching for nearly every major financial services firm in the US. To take the first step towards coaching, complete the pre-coaching business profile for a complimentary consultation.
