Three Tips to Close Your First Sale

After completing your training sales with a qualified trainer many newbies often find themselves confused as to what magic pixie dust was sprinkled on their prospects to make them go forward in the sales process. As they get out on their own, they notice that closing a client isn't as easy for them as it was for their experienced trainer. The thing they find most frustrating is they somehow think that it's their personality, mannerisms, or just lack of talent that keeps them from succeeding. This could not be further from the truth. These three tips will take you from zero to hero in the closing process overnight and come from such experts and Tom Hopkins, Jim Rohn, and of course my own mentors in the sales business.

1. Qualify your prospect on the first visit. There is nothing more frustrating than delivering the perfect presentation and offering the perfect product to your prospects only to receive that "deer in headlights" stare across the table. If you don't qualify your prospect you won't be able to anticipate their needs and offer a product or service that suits them. Things such as their budget, their interests, their family (do they have kids or not, are they going through a divorce?) their need for the product (are they purchasing insurance but are single and not married?) are all things that must be qualified before you can recommend a product. A vacuum salesman trying to sell to someone beginning a remodel may have a timing issue. You must qualify to know what their buying timeline is.

2. Never do a one-legged appointment. If you want to get the sale closed and it's a high ticket item you need to have both the husband and wife at the table. Whenever I receive resistance on this, such as "I make all the decisions, my wife doesn't care," I'm sure to use the following statement. "Would you honestly buy a new home without your spouse seeing it before you signed the papers?" If they can honestly answer yes to that I would probably walk away because they are too crazy to do business with. People realize that any big decision take two to successfully land on a decision and sign on the dotted line.

3. Learn the buzz words that take the sting out of buyer's remorse. Use words like "authorize, approve, and ok" versus "sign." Little words that make it seem easy to go forward can help you close a tough sale and move slow to decide folks onto the next step.

If you prepare yourself in these areas and learn the top objections for the product you're selling and master the answers to moving people forward you will easily close your first, second, and hundredth sale in no time.