Now, it's all about your closing tactics!

Including today, at the most, there's about 18 selling days left in the year...and that's assuming that your prospect is not leaving for the week after Christmas, which is, of course, classic family vacation time. 

Sales Funnel 2021With those precious 18 days on the calendar and with B2B sales cycles currently being what they are, whatever is going to happen between now and the end of the year, is going to occur after your "Discovery" step in whatever sales process funnel and CRM you're currently using.  Other than maximizing every hour you can in your calendar and consistently using your exacting value propositions, there's very little that you can do to collapse time given the need to now build your business cases with multiple stakeholders...except in the critical last step of closing the deal.  

Did you know there are 38 different methods of closing?

Somewhat of a worthless fact, except for the necessity of perfecting your own practiced skill and ease in being absolutely comfortable and fluent in two or three of these as your own best practices.  Just like any professionally trained athlete-because that's what you are-you're trained, practiced, and sharpened in specific skills, and one of the most critical of those is your ability to bring the ball across the goal line or into the net in the final minutes (in this case, 18 days) of the game and put points on the board.   

To me one of the true legends in the profession of basketball, Larry Bird, said it best about practicing any skill.  Well known for his three-pointers, he was asked once why it was that he was one of the best in this specific skill in the history of the game, and his response says it all about the discipline of repeated training in the art and science of closing skills.

"Whenever I’d get ready to call it a day, I’d think, “No”. Somebody else is still practicing. Somebody-somewhere- is playing that extra 10 or 15 minutes. Most of the time, I would go back and shoot for 30 more minutes. In my career, I don’t know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough."

This Friday let's not think about 38 different tactics, since you're already using a variety of these today.  Tomorrow or on Monday, take 30 minutes and think through and narrow down your closing types to just one or two, and then immediately start practicing and sharpening those.  You can either do this individually, or better yet, as a team at the end of next week's sales huddle.  As an example, in my own sales work, I use one specific closing skill (the Assumptive Close) 90% of the time, and it has served me very well since my comfort factor is very high.    

For a quick overview video of Closing Sales Skills, you can click here, and/or visit our Sales Solution Page at our site for not only this video, but a library of other critical sales skills that you might find as solid refreshers over the next 18 days.

Have a great day selling today!  I'm off to a 9:00 sales call.  
 

Jack Derby, Professor & Sales Coach AN ANYTIME SOUNDING BOARD 

If at any time, you have a need for a confidential sounding board for your 2022 business or sales planning process, just connect with me!  Text or email me, and I'll quickly set up a call.  I'm a very good listener, and we can get deep into tactics if you want. Obviously, no cost for a call or two; just an opportunity to listen intently and make a few recommendations based on decades of experience.

www.derbymanagement.com

Derby Entrepreneurship Center@Tufts. 

 

 

Tags: sales coach, sales management coach, sales enablement, marketing effectiveness, how to close sales, sales boot camps, improving sales productivity, how to write a sales plan, writing sales plans