Helping Clients Succeed®: Closing the Sale

After more than a decade of working with sales professionals all over the world, we have observed that there are two common mistakes that keep many sales professionals from winning more deals:

• Many sales presentations are lost before they are even given. Salespeople present to open the sales cycle rather than presenting to close.
• The sales presentations are information-rich and decision-poor. The presentations end in “thanks a lot,” “we’ll think about it,” “Hey, could you leave us some of the PowerPoint slides?” Critically, no decision is made.

Helping Clients Succeed^®: Closing The Sale is designed to help sales leaders and their teams close more sales by applying the mindsets and skillsets of the world’s top performers.

The top-performer difference

The top 5% of sales professionals approach closing differently. They understand that closing is much more than a single event. Rather, it’s a process of successful decision-making that happens long before the contract is ever signed, and winning or losing the sale depends on whether they have—or have not—added value to that decision-making process.

What top performers do differently

• Sell with the intent to achieve win-win outcomes.
• Carefully prepare before every client meeting to create the conditions for good decision-making.
• Spend less time talking at the client and more time discussing with the client those decisions that will best serve the client’s needs.
• Follow a simple, reliable process to determine when they are ready to close.

The Outcome

We have seen that as salespeople adopt these mindsets and skill sets, they dramatically improve their win rates. By enabling their clients to make better decisions, your salespeople are far more likely to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes so that closing the sale becomes an enjoyable and rewarding process for everyone.