AVOIDING CLOSING & CONFRONTATION…many people in the Sales profession avoid Closing because they do not want to be perceived as being “pushy” or “salesy”. FACT: 80% of all sales are achieved after the fifth Close. This certainly creates a dilemma if you are not comfortable closing five times!
Sometimes Closing & Confrontation are considered “cousins”. As a result in order to avoid Confrontation many Salespeople do not Close often enough. If that is true for you, it will help if you first to look at how well you handle Confrontation. If you handle Confrontation easily, then Closing becomes much more natural.
Here is your ACTION STEP… let’s first of all look at some basic questions:
1. Do you avoid Confrontation or do you meet it head on when it presents itself?
2 What approach do you take?… a) hope it goes away?, b) address it immediately?, or…the most common one…c) delay things and then over-react because frustration builds up inside you?
3. Critical Question… what message do you send when you deal with Confrontation? Are you pleasant or unpleasant?
The best approach is to “address it immediately”. Avoiding Confrontation is merely delaying the inevitable. All great Salespeople step up to this issue as soon as the opportunity presents itself. That way, what is now a “small problem” is never allowed to become a “big problem”. This is true when asking for the appointment, pre-qualifying, handling objections, and most of all… Closing comfortably. Listen to our Closing CD in your car and internalize your dialog for smooth conversations.
Some feel that Closing & Confrontation are 1st cousins. Keep an eye on how you are feeling…look for signs of “feeling uncomfortable”… when you feel that way… step up to the issue, Confront it, and ultimately you will Close more smoothly. Doing it sooner versus later makes it a lot easier to accomplish on an ongoing basis. NO Excuses.