Closing the sale: defined by the Sticky-Marketing.com monthly magazine |
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Closing is a vital and final part of a selling task, it is when you ask for the order, fill out the order form with the customer, or if on-line manage to persuade people they can buy from you in confidence. Closing questions are those that are designed to bring investigative discussions to an end, to move prospects to take a purchase decision, "Can I have your order?", "Ok do you want it now?", "Where would you like it shipped to?", "Would you like the leather interior and optional CD player?". At some point, your selling process has to move from persuasion and information into a phase where you enable the sale to be closed, discarded or postponed for another day. In the on-line e-tailing situation the buyer is much more in control of the closing phase for example they can delay as long as they like or stop and return to the same position days or months later. In face to face situations a sales person will have a limit to the time they can spend on each customer and may have other people waiting or other appointments to get to, they will get an idea as they go through the information and persuasion stages if they will be able to successfully close a sale or not and will generally act accordingly. A typical weakness of new or poorly trained sales people is not to try to close, ask for the order. It is especially that time, when you ask for the order, when you can be rejected and when the investment of time and energy you have put into the preceding communication can come to nothing. (note similar to asking for a date, if you don’t ask you often don’t get!! :-) 07/08/2001 Use your browser back button or
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