The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes [111]
What does it cost you to not fix this problem?
When prospects thinks of it like that and learn that working with us can fix that challenge forever, they close the sale themselves.
However, even with great questions early in the sales process, an objection can still surface when it is time to close the sale. But if you remember that an objection is an opportunity to close, you will always be happy to hear one. For example, the client states this objection: “I’d love to buy it, but I just can’t afford it right now.” You should agree that the objection is valid. Always agree with an objection. The clients will drop their guard. You might say, “Well, that’s certainly a good reason not to invest in this today. [meaningful pause] But let me ask you a question: Is money the only thing standing between you and the purchase of this product?” At this point, if there are more objections, they will surface. If not, the client will say, “No, if I could afford it, I’d buy it.”
This is called isolating the objection. It’s standard sales stuff that is taught in every major sales training program, and yet every day I see salespeople make the mistake of not isolating the objection. I suppose the real lesson with any type of sales training comes down to the main lesson in this book: you must work on each of these strategies with pigheaded determination and discipline. That’s the only way you’re ever going to fully integrate any of this so that it becomes synthesized into the way people think and operate.
So when someone throws you an objection, if you isolate the objection you have just moved a huge step closer to closing the sale. Now it’s up to you to lock down the sale. You say, “So if I can find a way for you to afford this product, you will buy it?” If the client says yes, you have just closed the sale. You will now need to be more creative in the financing of the product or ser vice or help create more desire, showing how not buying it will cost them a lot more in the long run.
Sales Step 6: Close the Sale
Although the goal is to set up such logical buying criteria that the prospect and the salesperson walk to the close together, it should also be stated that most people need help in making decisions. I had one client who spent two years deciding whether to hire me to help grow his business. I finally said to him: “Look, you don’t need any more information. You already know as much as you’re ever going to know. You just need to make a decision. Do you have what it takes to make the decision? Because that’s where you’re at right now.” That’s a hard-core close, but without it he might have continued wasting his time struggling over the decision when he could have been working with me to improve his business. He said: “You’re right. I do know. I want it.” And he bought.
I faced another prospect who had the same problem. He just couldn’t make the decision, so I took him through a series of questions:
ME: Do you believe that I will help you go to the next level?
CLIENT: Yes.
ME: Do you honestly feel that my help will earn you far more than you will ever spend on my ser vices?
CLIENT: Yes, I know you’ll be worth a lot more than I’ll spend.
ME: Do you see that the problems I’ve laid out for you are going to cost you far more in the long run?
CLIENT: Yes.
ME: What do you think is the main result you’re going to get from working with me and how valuable is that to you?
It went on like this, as I asked about 10 of these questions until the client finally agreed, in a fervor of decisiveness: “Yes. Let’s do it.”
You may need to help prospects make the decision. It’s okay to make them feel a little pressure. If you believe that what you have is good for them, close already!
Another tried-and-true sales method is to assume the sale, saying things like, “Do you want that today?” or “Where do we ship that?” I was a young man of only 19 the first time I saw a master salesperson assume the sale. It was my first day working at a furniture store, and