Closing too early can seem overly aggressive or presumptuous. Not asking for a commitment at the appropriate time, or simply dawdling, can burn precious resources and delay qualified opportunities. How can you know when it’s the right time to ask for the business? Easy—by trial closing to reduce your risk.
You can’t talk about selling without talking about closing and securing commitments so that’s one of the higher risk areas in the typical sales process so if you look at this typical sales process first you identify the opportunity qualifying understand their needs proposed solutions all this kind of stuff and closing somehow comes at the end which is actually not
Really true very few one call closes where one conversation leads to a sale maybe in a highly transactional environment maybe so but usually in a value-based sale the largest sale is accumulation of smaller successes so it really is engage the customer in conversation secure commitment to take the next step engage the customer secure commitment engage the customer
Secure commitment now some sales processes can last months weeks months long sales cycles can can even last over a year and some sales processes last two or three conversations so so whatever’s appropriate we need to be thinking about how can we can secure engage the customer and then secure commitments and we get to the actual closing techniques there’s more
Than one way to skin a cat so one way is just to be direct just just come right out and say mr. customer how would you like to proceed from here and that’s not wrong but one of the risks of that is if the customer doesn’t know how best to proceed they could start making up agenda items that otherwise are unnecessary in other words how can you get me a list of 35
Testimonials and and 42 proof statements and can we do some benchmark testing and can we bring it in and doing an implementation trial run and all of a sudden the sales process it’s longer and longer and longer because the salesperson keeps saying what else do you want me to do jump what other hoops do you want me to jump through so i don’t i don’t have a problem
Being direct but but maybe we can insert the idea of testing the waters trial closing if you will to give you a sense of where you actually are in the sales process so we know how direct we can be i just believe and i teach that if we if we insert a certain softness into our commitment requests it’s easier to be actually more direct it sounds opposite but by being
More respectful and softer we can be more direct so there’s different ways to do that one is to ask about smaller components of the larger sale so for example you might say mr. customer are you planning to lease if you move forward this we planted the lease or purchase you might ask do you want us to ship this overnight or is this regular shipping going to be okay
You might ask do we need to pay attention to warehousing the equipment once it arrives before it gets put into production and if the answer is oh yeah we’ve already cleared a space for the we’re in the warehouse for the materials that gives you a pretty good idea that they’re down the path if they say oh yeah no no we we don’t need to ship it overnight because our
Lead time is two weeks from now we’re gonna plan to it gives you a pretty idea that you’re pretty close and once you know you’re pretty close there’s a lot less risk it’s not like putting your neck on the block and hoping it doesn’t get chopped off alternate choice is another trial close mr. customer if you choose to go forward with this have you decided whether
Or not you want red green or blue and if they said we’re definitely going to go with green that gives you an indication of where they stand in terms of making the decision i like the one to ask beyond the transaction because it tends to if self-serving isn’t good being customer focused is better this puts you out of the self serving camp into the customer focus
Camp and here are the words mr. customer okay let’s think beyond the transaction if you choose to move forward this i mean down the road if if and when you choose to move forward this when would you want it to be implemented fully operational and the customer might come back to say january first okay so so if you move forward this january first you might start
Off the new year with this as part of the operation yes and they go yeah okay well if we work backwards from that would you want to test it have a testing period before you put it into production then you’d say well yeah yeah we’d want to test it well how long would you want to test it for a couple weeks yeah two or three weeks oh wait a minute the second half
Of december usually is holiday time so two or three weeks we need to be thinking end of november to place an order and by the way the decision process the purchasing process how long does that take and they say well that usually takes two or three weeks as well okay wait a minute now we’re back to the beginning of november and if you’re going to do an evaluation
Process how long does that take and they said well if it’s probably about 30 days before we do the evaluation and get the committee together okay well now now we’re back to the beginning of october let me check my watch it’s mid september if you want this fully operational january 1st we pretty much have to start the ball rolling in the next week or two and and
What happens is january 1st is next year it’s it’s next year it’s wait it’s a way far away until you back up and find out january 1st operational is actually two weeks away and so wow thanks for bringing that to my attention now we can get the ball rolling and not have a fire drill we need this yesterday at the end of the year another technique pure communication
Technique that i really like is called the humbling disclaimer there are some questions that are sensitive and sensitive by sensitive i mean high risk so for example asking about the budget mr. customer do you have budget for this just has that feel of i’m about to reach in your pocket grab your wallet and yank it as hard as i can if you use a humbling disclaimer
What that is is a prefix to your question it sounds like this mr. customer i don’t want to be pushy or step out of bounds and that’s something i’m not supposed to ask about but do you mind if i ask the budget question now technically the answer to that is yes i mind or no i don’t nine times out of ten they share their budget or they share something about their
Budget they may not share exact numbers by my name say oh yeah as a matter of fact where the process of getting it approved or we won’t be able to get approved in february or whatever but knowing where you stand is the key to securing commitment because if you don’t know your stain you’re just guessing it’s high-risk and by the way if you keep coming back to the
Well and being shut down and shut down and shut down in a very short period of time you become a pest another idea is you might even try being honest mr. customer i’ve been working with my team and we’ve been forecasting this deal to close by the end of march from an implementation perspective to have the resources ready i would rather be accurate than optimistic
So when my boss asked me later today is march still a reasonable target can i ask what should i tell him is that is that so reasonable or is this going to be pushed out i would literally would ask that critics of that might say well tom you’re giving the customer an out i would argue back they already have an out they already know they don’t have to buy from you i
Just want to know where i stand so i think oh no no you can tell your boss we’ll be rated by the end of march then i know exactly where i stand i’m in a good position if they come back and say oh yeah this this is probably gonna get pushed out oh to win what’s happening well what do we need to think about and and all of a sudden the reality is it may be pushed out
And you may be able to rescue that but you can only rescue it if you know what the true status of it is in the last the last technique ologist dispenses a trial closing technique has asked the customer for their advice mr. customer if you were in my shoes if you were the salesperson in this account what would you be doing differently or would you be doing anything
Differently and they may come back and give you some constructive feedback which is probably some of the best feedback you’ll ever get they might say well if i was on the account i would ask for the order two weeks ago they might say oh if i was in the accountant i would i would push for a meeting with the executive team if i was in the accountant i might just be
A little bit patient because the internal workings have to work in two weeks from now we’ll be in good shape and that’s great advice all of that information gives me an advantage over just hoping to ask for commitments and and put my head on the block and an incurring risk i used to have a sales manager who said you have to get used to being rejected in fact the
More times you get rejected the closer you are to making a sale to me that always sounded silly to me i’d rather be rejected less but that entails winning more often and winning more often as a function of good technique and good strategy and and being perceived as customer focus which is a lot to do with you you
Transcribed from video
QBS Live: Tip #51 – Trial Close…to Reduce Your Risk By QBSresearch
