The Key To Closing

I’m a big soccer fan (#LFC!) and there is a truism in that sport. It says that creating chances is far more difficult than finishing them.

In other words, creating a true chance to score a goal is far more difficult than actually putting the ball in the back of the net.

This is a sales truism as well.

Creating a true opportunity to win a deal is way more difficult than actually closing it.

I’ve always found the extreme focus some leaders place on closing to be misplaced.

Closing is easy. Developing a truly qualified opportunity to close is hard.

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold on there, Bud.”

Yes? (Friends, meet Milt. For those of you who've read my book Zero-Time Selling, he’s back…)

“Closing is easy?”

Yes.

“Yeah, I don’t think so. I’ve always got a ton of opportunities in my pipeline. I’m working like crazy and, if I’m lucky, I close 20% of them. I mean, if closing was that easy, my close rate would be a lot higher.”

That’s the problem. You think you actually have a chance to close most of those “opportunities."

“What’s with the “air quotes?”

Sorry. What I meant was that what you consider an opportunity probably isn’t.

"But they’re in my pipeline…”

Which is the problem. They shouldn’t be.

“Hey, these weren’t some marketing leads. I developed these myself."

Yes, you did. Let me give you a pat on the back for doing your job! However most of these prospects aren’t truly qualified to buy what you’re selling.

“They all passed my BANT test with flying colors.”

And, yet, here they are clogging your pipeline like bad cholesterol poised to give your forecast a heart attack.

“Because closing is hard!”

No. Because they aren’t qualified to buy what you’re selling. Closing an unqualified prospect is next to impossible. As it should be.

“So, what you’re saying is...I’m wasting a bunch of my time selling to unqualified prospects.”

Yep. My experience has shown that inadequate qualification is probably the single biggest point of failure for most sellers.

“Why?"

Because they do a superficial, drive-by BANT-type qualification early in the selling process and think they’re done.

“Which is why I get a lot of No Decision decisions.”

Sorry. It doesn’t have to be that way. There are some simple rules of thumb about qualification:

• True qualification is a process that won’t be completed before you’ve finished discovery
• Qualification can’t be completed until the buyer has internally decided on the outcomes they need to achieve with your product or service
• You can’t complete qualification of the buyer until they have quantified what those outcomes will mean to them in terms of dollars.

“What? Why? I’m not sure I understand that.”

On a B2B deal of any complexity you can’t consider a prospect to be qualified until they’ve decided what value they need to receive from the solution they plan to purchase.

“So, if the buyer has gone to the effort of calculating the dollar value they’d receive from buying and using my solution, then that means they’ve probably made the decision to move ahead with a purchase.”

Exactly. However, you’re not quite finished. There’s still two more qualifying steps to be done. Complete those and your odds of winning the deal will be much higher.

"And those are..?"

You can find those final qualification steps in the course I released called “5-Step Power Qualification.” It's part of my Advanced SalesCraft™ series.

This is the process that I’ve personally used to qualify and close deals ranging from in size from $5,000 to over $50 million. If I can do it, you can too.

Of course, there is a catch. You have to be a member!

Become a member of The Sales House (for just $1 per day) and you get:

• unlimited access to all of the productivity-enhancing lessons in my SalesCraft™ Academy;
• participate in our weekly live coaching and mentoring from me personally;
• unlimited access to our weekly live workshops;
• unlimited questions answered and mentoring provided by me through our exclusive Sales House Slack community.

“$1 per day?”

Yes.

“Less than a coffee?”

Way less. Three sales pros could join The Sales House for the cost of that cup of coffee you guzzled on the way to work this morning.

See you ‘round the House.

- Andy Paul