Tuesday, May 31, 2011

On Closing

There is no doubt: nothing gets done in business without closing. It doesn't matter how many relationships are opened, how many appointments are arranged, or how many features and benefits are sung if deals are never closed. Closing pays the bills. Closing keeps the lights on. You can't continue to provide a service to your clients if you aren't generating the revenue necessary to fuel the machine. When all is said and done, if you cannot get your client to sign on, you aren't selling. You're just having conversations. Selling is closing.

It is this reality, I think, that has led the great majority of salespeople to the notion that is their clients who must be closed. There is much talk about working the customer, overcoming the customer's objections, and closing the customer. What is wrong with this line of thinking? It is adversarial. It makes the customer the enemy. Our goal in sales has become, not to help the customer, but to conquer him. Closing means defeating the customer--breaking down her defenses and making her feel vulnerable enough to sign the contract. The customers are the enemies and, when we close deals, it means we are beating them.

Let me offer another perspective on closing: we don't close the customer, we help the customer close his problems. We don't work the customer, we work for the customer. We don't overcome the customer's objections, we help the customer overcome that which is keeping him from being successful. We are on the customer's team. This concept may be difficult to grasp for the salesperson who is accustomed to using tricks and tactics to dupe the customer into signing a contract. However, I think that going this route is far more effective than objectifying the customer and making her into something to be overcome. The customer has problems and that is why she is hiring us: to help her conquer those problems, not so that we can conquer her.

Let us ask ourselves, "Whose side are we on?" In a negotiation with a customer, are we trying to beat them or are we trying to help them beat their problems? Are we closing them or are we helping them close their problems? The fact is that customers don't hire salespeople so that they can be taken advantage of. They hire salespeople so that salespeople can help them take advantage of opportunities to improve their businesses. The customer is not the enemy. The enemy is the customer's problems. If anything, for salespeople, the customer is the damsel-in-distress and we are the knights in shining armor. Let us make sure when we are closing that our sword is pointed in the right direction. Let us close the right thing. Let us slay a little more dragon and a little less damsel.

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