4 Rules of Engagement That Wildly Increase Your Odds of Closing the Deal If someone calls about what you sell, call them back. Not in a week, right now.
By Grant Cardone Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Sales is a process that can be learned but is comprised of many topics and categories that you have to master to become an expert. No one book or recording can cover everything you need to know to become great.
Consider that every salesperson has a unique personality and then add to that that every customer interaction and customer personality is unique and you can see how complicated it can become. Surgery is almost less complicated for the doctor because he is dealing with bodies that are unconscious while the salesperson is dealing with personalities, egos, insecurities, uncertainty, economics, competition and more.
Here are a few of the topics that salespeople need to learn and understand:
• New to Sales
• Fundamentals of Selling
• Road to the Sale
• Handling Objections
• Negotiating Strategies
• Social Media and Sales
• Closing the Deal
• Follow Up for Owners
• Follow Up for the Unclosed
• Sales Manager
• Sales Meetings
• Understanding Customers
• Incoming Calls
• Outbound Calls
• Cold Calls
• Internet Response
• Customer Service
• Motivation
It's very easy to become overwhelmed with the different topics so let's narrow the focus and talk specifically about four general rules to follow once you have actually gotten a customer or prospect in front of you. What approach will you take? Not knowing means you'll be missing out on deals every day.
In business, you must have a pipeline and a belief system that you can sell to anyone. Once you have become engaged here are four general rules to help you in the process.
1. Agree
No matter what the buyer says, states or demands, you should under no circumstance ever disagree, make the buyer wrong or suggest their request is impossible. This simple strategy is very powerful and will save you lots of sales once you perfect it.
The old saying -- the customer is never wrong -- is not true. In fact, often the customer is wrong; sometimes they even lie, but that doesn't mean you should call them out. When you tell someone you can't, you won't, you're not allowed to or that's impossible, you only cause the customer to become more dug-in on their position. You make it more difficult to come to an agreement.
Train, drill and rehearse avoiding all variations of no, not, never, can't and won't. Any and all variations of "no" and "can't" must be eliminated from your vocabulary.
Now when you hear this you may think, "I don't want to mislead the customer and I am not going to over promise and then be unable to deliver." The problem here is when you tell someone early on you are unable to do something because you are "so honest'" you just eliminated any chance of being able to do anything for the customer. Try this when a customer asks for the impossible, "I never say no until I have to -- if that is possible, there is no better place for you to be."
Role play this law of selling until you no longer get into confrontations with your buyer and make them more difficult than they already are. Perfect "no problem, happy to, my pleasure, exactly what I am thinking, done, you got it" and then learn how to negotiate from a place of agreement. This does not mean that you simply lie down and give the buyer everything they want. It means you use the agreement to keep the negotiations loose enough to be negotiated.
Just because this is simple do not underestimate the time and energy necessary to get GREAT at it.
Related: The Magic of Agreement
2. Present
You must give them an offer and your proposal should have a figure and be presented with confidence. These seems basic but 72 percent of salespeople never present a proposal to their customer, which is part of the reasons why 87 percent of all salespeople miss their quota.
Simply increase the number of people you show a written proposal to and you will close more deals.
Related: The Art of the Follow-Up
3. Close
Wrap the deal up and get them to purchase. When you get to the close, make sure you are with the decision maker. Qualify them and have a sense of urgency. Without urgency, there's no point in doing the deal today or tomorrow.
Selling, presenting, demonstrating, promoting, marketing, building trust, etc. are all very commendable and admirable actions but in no way compare to finally closing the deal. Closing is when you finally benefit your buyer.
Closing allows you and your company to expand. All the things that took place prior to the close were necessary to get to the close but will not allow for expansion and survival. Close the deal! Be willing to do whatever it takes to close the deal, knowing that only when you close do you provide any real value to the customer.
The close is ultimately for the buyer, not for you or your company. Until the customer closes they cannot benefit from your service or offer.
Related: 12 Commandments for Closing a Sale
4. Follow-up
This is the Holy Grail of sales. It's the most important thing there is but few people and companies do it. Consider that 48 percent of salespeople never follow up and that 64 percent of companies admit they do not have any organized way to nurture a lead. Follow up is a massive opportunity. Then add to that the average company takes almost 72 hours to follow up a lead, even though contacting a customer in the first five to 10 minutes increases your chances of contacting the customer 900 times. Text them in the first five minutes and your chances of closing them increase 50X.
Learn the rules and use the rules and make deals.
