Closes are for shysters and charlatans

Well, experience yes, but I've been a student of sales because it's my livelihood.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no formal training program that focuses specifically on what I described. However, I have had an opportunity to study the work of David Sandler, and his system seemed to have some things in common with the thoughts I shared.

Most traditional sales training programs would not cover that.

The term Apparent Attitude was coined by me. The people who worked for me when I conducted in-house training had the highest conversion ratio in our industry in the geographic area we competed in. My company continues to hold that distinction, and I remain very active in sales myself.

It goes without saying that when you have extraordinary results, you are usually doing things different than the majority.

And that's a good thing.

Skip, your sample close is pretty weak: "Here's a close for you: "Do you want to buy it?" ". In fact, because of the way in which it would be positioned, the SR would pretty much have painted him/herself into a corner.

If the response is "yes" it works BUT if it's a "no", what is a SR to do? (I know the answer but I'm a little concerned for rookies.)

It's almost a "question to ask low reactors" versus a closing question.

Good luck & Good selling!
Pat

Pat, I thought it was weak, too.

I'm impressed with your in depth understanding in these discussions.

I have a question for you, Pat. Can you see the subtle difference if you were to modify those six words that the respondent provided to "Do you want to do this?"

Post #8 did offer two examples of "closes". I had not read that entire post because of its length.

Joe Closer, you asked me if I could see the subtle difference if we modified those six words:
1. "Do you want to buy it?" OR,
2. "Do you want to do this?"

When you're an experienced SR, you work to keep your options open. You also hope to keep your questioning as open as possible (versus closed probes which tend to get 'yes/no' responses). Unfortunately, what you're suggesting remains another 'closed probe' with the same ultimate corner being painted.

If the SR were extremely optimistic about this prospect, he might just pull out an order blank and begin asking questions the answers to which get written into the order:
1. "what's the correct billing address?"
2. "who should I put down as the contact for ordering supplies?"
3. "...shall we deliver on Tuesday or Wednesday, which is better for you?"
4. "who should I speak to about credit information?"

If this approach raises any eye-brows, you can always respond assumptively with, "... I'm filling in the order..." to which you might get, "...but I didn't say I was buying...".

You know the drill but never apologize for doing your job because you can always diminish his discomfort by, "... I'm certain that your SR's are out there selling your prospects much the same way as I'm selling to you..."!

Good luck & Good selling!
Pat

I have to say that I think knowing about all of these closes is kind of like learning the scales in music or trick shots in tennis. It's great pulling one off, but in the same way a tennis player is very rarely going to have to hit a lob, facing the wrong way, between his legs, it is unlikely that you need to use the double puppy-dog peanut sandwich take-away close very often
Of course you have to close to get the sale... that's what you're paid for. But tennis players will be playing basic forehands and backhands 95% of the time and likewise, if you have done your job properly asking openly and honestly to "go-ahead" or for the order will do the trick. It's useful to know a handful, but I really think this idea of memorising 99 closes goes back to the time of the hard sell when you just kept lobbing different closes back at the customer until he fell for one.
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Merry Xmas
Mark Goodson
Real Life Selling

Mark... In my opinion, a SALE results from a series of understandings or agreements that create a desire for the client to move forward. The differences with do you want to buy this versus do you want to do this, as mentioned earlier is another form of delivery mixed in with the idea of "closing" and is more than a subtle difference from MY POINT OF VIEW.

In my opinion, "Do you want to buy this?" might be an offer made in frustration, where a client is not being pinned down either from my own ineptitude or his playing games with me and would come after a suggestion such as "shall we do this?" which ALSO in my opinion is better than "Do YOU want to do this." Do YOU want to buy this is vastly more pointed.

I use EIRA to confront my clients potential for a sale.
Explore
Identify
Recommend
Agreement

I know some here who have seen this might be thinking that you need agreement that something you might offer might create a solution before coming in with a recommendation when looking at this for the first time and in fact that is what happens... "John, you said earlier that you could survive roughly 3 months by taking cash out of your company/Savings in the event you were not able to do the material and substantial requirements of your job and were thus disabled. I did record that correctly didn't I?"

John "Yeppers... beyond that I'd really be hurting".

SalesGuy "John, thinking out loud here, to cover your income one way or the other would cost you $5,000 a month right? One alternative available to you would be to have you sacrifice only the first 30 days of your savings while we pick up the rest after 60 days. What I mean by this is that with insurance, you have to lose it before we pay for it, so though we pick up day 31 and beyond, you won't get it back till the end of the month or about day 60. Make sense?

Something like this would only run you $250 a month today IF YOU'RE IN GOOD HEALTH and your After Tax Income will be protected till you'd retire. We can play with waiting periods and have checks start arriving at 90 or 120 days too for a little less, but how does this sound so far?

John will get into some discussion here with SalesGuy certainly and where SalesGuy has the opportunity to provide more insight.. such as the fact that if you're out for more than 90 days, your income requirements will most likely actually INCREASE and you might really miss your surplus funds. Things like cancer, stroke, and bypass operations can do this for you... which is why we also offer Critical Illness Insurance.

At some point in the discussion you're going to get positive or negative feedback and you deal with it one way or the other, but in my opinion, the phrase, "John, thinking out loud here..." is a request for discussion of your "offering" without getting into the "drama" of a so called close. You'll actually be able to discuss ALL of the points that would be objections later on in this discussion aimed at solving a problem. At the end of the discussion, more likely than not, you have a premium tolerance and a product that he feels will be another way around his current situation.

It is after a discussion like this, or several discussions, that we'll come back with a presentation which will include all of these litte notations we've made during our exploration/discovery phase.

Our presentations actually have OBSERVATION pages in which we present what our understandings are of his situation. WE ALSO CONTINUE TO GET AGREEMENT FROM HIM BEFORE WE MOVE ON TO THE NEXT PAGE.

We also have RECOMMENDATIONS based upon our previous agreements and lastly we have a SUMMARY which ties features and benefits of the recommendations to our observations.

This took longer to explain than do, but after all of this a "So John, whatdya think... shall we go ahead with this?" is the most likely form of request necessary for agreement... and my SALE.

Much Aloha...

Wow, interesting thread. I am impressed with the amount of emotional energy it has spurred and more so with the level of professionalism generally shown on the forum.

Gold, Loved your original rant. Go man go. And you are correct, we do not know the original context of the quote in the book. Was it a marketing ploy ala Frank Rumbaskas or was it uninformed and inexperienced sales speaking?

From the text itself it appears that the author is responding to a general fear of sales people as the end all, be all of convincing and manipulating that if it ever existed could hardly survive today. From that perspective which is universally based on the sales person caring only about his own agenda, the quote makes sense. As mentioned however, that day is done.

Loved the rest of the rant too. The "close" in sales structure is simply some question that asks the buyer to make a choice of yes or no. One of the worst sales people I have ever paid a base salary too seemed to think it was not her job to ask closing questions, but to keep buying them meals and gifts until they felt so guilty they had to buy something. Very sad that she has been in sales for more than 20 years and never learned. Impressive though she still gets hired... (I inherited her, tried to train her and moved her on.) The point is becausee she never asked for a yes or a no, she ended up with a fat pipeline of worthless opportunities and failed at generating revenue.

I would suggest tossing the book as well. Look to a solutions selling model which builds value intentionally, and closes based on the real and actual value you bring the customer relative to their own dominant buying motive. Then, by the time you get to the close it is already decided.

BTW, my favorite closing question is "what would you like me to do now?" Whatever they answer guides my next steps but most of the time, by the second time I ask it, it is for the sale.

It would seem that the author of your book there has been 'closed' and is experiencing some sort of catharsis by calling closers charlatans... As has been mentioned in several of the other responses, closing is a necessary step in the sales cycle. It's the close that feels like a 'technique' that gets people all riled up.

If you've done the job well, simply asking for the business will not come off as a technique or a ploy to get the target to do something they don't want to do. It's a natural step in the progression from prospect to customer that will enhance - not damage - the relationship.

Mr. Moore, is it safe to say that you believe closing is a step in itself---distincly separate as an event?

__________________
Gary A. Boye
Senior Editor,
Selling Journal/SalesPractice