Asking Clients to Buy

(Article 16 in a series)

We left off the last article with the statement that unresolved questions result in “maybe’s” from clients.

If you’ve done good work during your presentation, there is a lot less pressure during the buying decision. If you avoided the incremental closing (buying) decisions up until now, that tends to result in a higher-pressure closing scenario.

Let’s say you have followed the concepts in this series and have a clear path to bring the client to decision. (If not, I conduct tailored Sales Training Programs for Business Coaching clients in Oklahoma and have trained sales groups across the nation – even internationally.)

But, we’re assuming you have proactively addressed the expected needs of the client during the conversation and have asked for objections and concerns during your “Presentation-in-Thirds”.

Where does that leave you?

You’ve got 3-4 steps to bring the client to decision.

Recap and Remind
Summarize into a dollar value
Present the price
Write up the order

We can get through the first two steps today and the last two next week.

Recap and Remind: Use your paper summary document that you have paperclipped to the top of your order form to handwrite out a recap list of the benefits from segments 1, 2, and 3 of your presentation. Each of these trial closes (incremental decisions) should have been getting agreements on the client’s set of features and benefits. You even might have written them down on your Sales Summary Sheet as you did that.

(But Chris, I don’t have a Sales Summary Sheet. Where do I get that?)

You create one.

(But Chris, I sign up my clients with an electronic form so it’s not a set of paper documents.)

You should still make one.

Less than 20% of communication is verbal so you need to enlist nonverbal tools to help you get your client to decision. When you begin to write notes out for a client, it’s natural for them to read them. You are inviting them to participate in the creation of a custom benefits analysis for them or their company.

Remind the client of the hypothetical agreement you made during the “Pre-Close” discussion. The time you asked if you could show a solution that solved a particular issue in a clear manner; also, when the financial benefit was WAY above the cost. WAY-WAY above…would they want to do something like that?

Summarize into financial dollar amounts. 90% of the benefits you have shown the client can be translated into a dollar amount using a combination of time savings, dollar savings, new revenues and most importantly new return clients. Savings is always nice, but unless you are presenting to the CFO, bookkeeper or controller-type, you are going to need to show an increase in business income to the business owner to get their excitement.

Out to the right of each benefit, estimate the higher end of the value of each feature you have shown the client and when you have worked your way to the bottom, add it all up. It should be a big number.

(To be continued)

7th Gear Coaching