The Top 5 Ways to Close a Deal It's all about them.

A famous Philadelphian once said, "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!" This wasn't the only advice Benjamin Franklin offered to the dealmakers of the future. In his autobiography, Franklin talked about a lesson he learned when he tried to convince farmers to supply wagons for an expedition. When he showed the farmers how it would benefit them personally, they immediately agreed. This discovery would soon be translated into his famous sales principle: "It's all about them!"

Basic sales techniques haven't changed much since Franklin's time. As an entrepreneur, business leader, or sales executive, you know that nothing happens until you close the deal. In my experience, closing business deals comes down to two basic principles: empathy and logic. Empathy allows you to put yourself in the prospect's shoes and understand their "pain points," and logic permits you to make connections between the prospect's needs and your solutions, thereby positioning your products to sell themselves.

After practicing what I like to call "instinctive selling" for many years, I often credited my success to a good economy or the strength of my product knowledge. But more recently, as I've mentored younger salespeople and created training materials, it dawned on me that I've been using five proven techniques all along.