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Closing Sales - The Fine Line Between Patience and Pressure

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Salespeople need to close sales at the first bonafide closing opportunity - the point at which (in the Baseline Selling model) all the bases have been touched. Bob, who I wrote about yesterday, tends to let people put him off if he thinks they have a valid reason. George tends to blow people up when he thinks they're putting him off. Somewhere, in between, exists a happy medium.

Our team of senior consultants was discussing this today and we determined that sometimes, the reason that prospects can't make decisions is that the very solution that was proposed isn't exactly right. It's either not what they wanted, expected, could afford or would pay for. Sometimes it simply includes a piece or component that they didn't think they needed, causing them to question the value of the entire proposal. Other times, salespeople provide options, providing prospects with a reason to think things over.

Make sure your salespeople get the freaking proposal right!!!


© Copyright 2007 Objective Management Group, Inc.

Posted by Dave Kurlan on Tue, Aug 28, 2007 @ 11:42 PM

COMMENTS

Dave, (Just to make sure.) I sent the email below to several prospects that I retracted proposals from this year.

"You are getting this message because at some point in the past, I retracted a "proposal" from you.

We at David Kurlan & Associates believe that introspection and self-evaluation is the best way to assure that we are setting the right example for our clients and prospective clients. When I read Dave's post this morning, I realized that it gave me the opportunity to check myself. Please take a moment to read it and if you think that it applies to the way I treated you, please reply to this post with "Have Dave call me at _________." If on the other hand, you're OK with the way things ended between us, please reply with "No, thanks."

Either way, I appreciate you giving me the 30 seconds that it took to read this message and the post."

I'll let you know if anybody calls.

posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 at 7:24 AM by Rick

Excellent. Thanks for sharing this one. I remember one of our first interactions, Dave, when I wrote a proposal for helping you with event registration, and you responded, "Stop sending this out. Please write up what we talked about". Through coaching, Rick taught me to write proposals with prospects so that I know that it is exactly what they want... and more importantly... it accomplishes what they want. Before the proposal is written, I should be setting the expectation that they have to say yes or no. That has helped immensely. Sometimes, I still ending up writing contracts after verbal agreements are made - that go unsigned. So, today I have a few prosoects to call where I plan to do some proposal retractions, while leaving the door open.

posted on Thursday, August 30, 2007 at 1:17 PM by peter caputa

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