In our 3 previous articles we introduced you to the concept of having a scripted Sales Conversation and got you going with Steps #1 through #5 of our 8-Step Sales Conversation That Closes More Sales. If you missed them you can find them here:
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Introduction To An 8-Step Sales Conversation To Close More Business
- Step #1 In The FOCUS 8-Step Sales Conversation That Closes Sales
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The FOCUS 8-Step Sales Conversation That Closes More Business – Steps #2 – #5
Now carry on in this article with our final 3-Steps and really get into becoming a sales machine that controls the conversation no matter where your prospect may try to take it.
Step #6: Closing
The best time to ‘close’ is when the buyer makes their own decision to buy because the logic of the decision is inescapable.
Those with high close rates will lead a prospect through the sales process in a way that gets them to realize they must have their product or service.
If you haven’t already quantified the pain, then now is the last chance. Ask questions that draw their attention to the cost of not addressing their issue by using your product.
If you can introduce the concept of risk reversal into your sales process, you can increase the likelihood of immediate success. Risk reversal makes it so that the prospect has nothing to lose in buying from you. Make your offer bullet proof. Again, a performance guarantee works like magic here.
Step #7: Handling Objections
The sales conversation will make how we handle objections a simple task. It is totally unacceptable to me that, after we present our close and ask for the business, the first little objection we get from our prospect turns us into babbling buttheads. “Um, ah, hmm, let me see, gee really, oh my, well . . . what if I take 50% off?”
We all know what the objections are going to be; they are the same five objections time and time again. So why are we taken by surprise each time this happens and our only comeback is to offer a lower price? Brilliant performance! Remember the ‘Opening Night’ experience, not just for your clients, but for your prospects too. And frankly—for you as well.
Record the five most common objections you get, develop a planned response for each one, memorize them, and then practice them until they are well rehearsed. You won’t close every sale, but you will close more sales, and will protect, or even improve, your profit margin.
Step #8: Follow-up
Make a list of possible follow-up activities you can incorporate into your sales process with your new clients or prospects that didn’t close with you. What is your valuable (not nuisance like) constant contact plan to encourage future sales without 
actively selling to them. Your social media plan, and card sites like SendOutCards.com might make an appearance here. The Mackay 66 is also an excellent reference for this exercise.
Here is one last effort to drive home the point of focusing on the value of a scripted sales conversation—or another way to put it, a Scripted Sales Performance—and the creation of the ‘Opening Night’ experience.
We have all been to live theatre productions such as Les Misérables, Mamma Mia, The Nutcracker Suite, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and so forth. Does anyone notice that it doesn’t matter whether you see the opening night, the 150th, the 1,0000th, or the closing performance; the audience is charged with excitement the same amount and each is equally well performed despite any number of cast changes? Why is the delivery so consistent, even perfect? You might suspect that mistakes are likely happening but you aren’t thinking about it and you certainly aren’t seeing it. Why?
Because everything is scripted!
The lighting is scripted, the orchestra is scripted, the prop positioning is scripted, the songs are scripted, the dances are scripted (choreographed), and the actors’ and actresses’ lines are scripted.
We can all do well to mirror the scripting of live stage performances in our business and practice with the focus and the sense of urgency like a performing company does on opening night and every night thereafter.
WHAT’S THE NEXT STEP?
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