Sales Success – Pre-closing Your Sale

Are you in sales and interested in converting more of your presentations into orders? If so you need to read this entire article as I am going to explain a process I use that really improves conversion.

The process I am talking about I call pre-closing the sale and here is how it works.

During the early stages of your sale you need to ask you prospect lots of questions to establish exactly what they want. I usually make a statement along the lines of "to ensure I really understand exactly what you are looking for I would like to ask you some detailed questions, is that okay?"

Lets be honest every single sales prospect wants you to understand their needs in fact all they care about is what they are after. So once they agree you ask them a detailed list of questions about their requirements and make a list (I wrote an earlier article about using open questions which I suggest you may find helpful).

Okay so you have asked your questions and the client has provided you with exact details of their requirements, the quantity, colour, size, model, budget and date of installation. It is now time to use the pre-closing technique.

Quite simply you say to your prospect "if I can provide my product, in your preferred colour, size, quantity, model, budget (just repeat back their list) can we proceed with an order today?"

Now if your prospect answers no, you may have missed something off of your list or they may be wasting your time. Either way it is better to no at this point than to go through the whole presentation process for no reason. If it is just a matter of adding another point to the list of their requirements then do so and repeat your pre-closing question.

Once the client agrees that they will order if you can meet all their requirements you have successfully pre-closed your sale. All you have to do now is to present your product or service making sure you match the features exactly as you wrote down on their wish list.

Having used this technique for several years I can confirm that not only does it speed up my sales presentations it also turns more of them into sales orders.