You Don't Always Win

The percentage of prospects that buy from you after your sales appointment and closing attempts is referred to as your closing percentage. Prospects don’t all buy every time in spite of your best effort to convince them. The reality of selling is that no one has a 100% closing ratio. At the height of my personal success selling medical insurance billing systems to doctors, my personal sales closing ratio was less that 50%., and I was looked on as a leader in my industry. My best salespeople closed 20% - 25% of the deals they chased and they made a lot of money. You just lose more than you win in sales. That is how it works.

If They Say No

I was taught early in my sales career to take responsibility for my failures. It was good advice that has served me well. If a prospective customer says no to my offer after a focused sales sit down I only have myself to blame for the failure. If you are faced with no, take a deep breath and try to figure it out what happened and fix it.

“No is not no, it is non-yes.” Mark Thelen, My favorite sales trainer.

Objections

Objections are a term for the reason or reasons the prospect does not want to buy your product or service.

Overcoming objections is a deliberate method to answer and neutralize reasons the prospect rejected your closing offer. If you can get them to state the objection or objections to a purchasing decision you have a fighting chance to neutralize them and ask for the order again.

 

• Ask them why they are not buying.
• Confirm the objection. Ask them to confirm what you have heard.
• Put the objection in perspective. “How often will your objection issue happen every year?” If the answer is once or twice, you can overcome the objection with the many other positive reasons that your prospect has already agreed to.
• Look at your notes from the sales interview. If you were using the trial closing technique, you probably have all of the fuel you need to overcome, answer and ask for the order again.
• Offer a solution to the objection. “If you can’t pay the full amount today, why not take advantage of our 90 days same as cash option?” Wait for the answer. If they accept your counter offer you have made the sale. Congratulations.

Objections are normal, particularly when there is a lot on the line. Learn to deal with and handle objections. There are only a few objections that you will hear over and over again. They may be slightly different, but over time (hopefully not much time) you will adeptly answer the core objections effectively as second nature.

If your prospects repeatedly say no and mean it your closing problems might go deeper than just mastering closing techniques and overcoming objections. There are a lot of steps and barriers standing between prospecting for leads and cashing the check. If your closing ratio is a low number and if you are struggling to book business a serious analysis of your step-by-step processes is in order. If this is your personal condition I suggest that you get a mentor or coach and work it out.

Never forget that your mission as sales professionals is to locate opportunity, develop each prospect, sit down with them, skillfully pitch your product or service to them and ask for the order. Closing business is the end game and the final measure of success.