20: Closing

hey everybody it's john barrows with j barrows consulting and make it happen mondays happy monday to everybody hopefully your weekend was a good one uh actually took some downtime this weekend uh spent it with the family went down to rhode island uh hung out on the beaches and did some uh crab fishing fishing which was interesting uh with my daughter but anyways um so yeah today and actually last week just to catch you all up last week i was in studio in vegas all for at least two days there um with main stage media by the way look them up david fantastic as far as uh content is concerned and and just quality of their output is incredible so super excited because i put all my driving to close content online and also cut up a whole bunch of tips and nuggets and stuff to to put into crm systems and everything else because you've heard me talk about this before i am a firm believer that my industry at least training industry is going to move into the just-in-time learning world where you're going to be at a certain stage of the sales process about to make a phone call to somebody and um instead of trying to remember what you went through in a training two weeks ago or three weeks ago there's gonna be a little blurb that pops up and says hey before you do that make sure you do this so that's what i'm preparing myself for and uh again it's all about evolution and making sure you're staying on top of your game which is what i'm trying to do so anyways um one of the modules i put together this past week in vegas was and it reminded me about um about what i want to talk about today which is closing right and and i posted this on uh to prep for it last week it should always be closing with the whole glengarry glenoss alec baldwin thing up there and actually got a lot of feedback if you look go look on that linkedin post there was a lot of people having uh some heated debate on what closing was why you should close and you know being super cheesy about it versus actually thinking about it and and i did that for a reason you know with the alec baldwin because i think there's a perception that closing is really just about hey i'm gonna you know i gotta close you and i gotta say something you know sneaky or pushy to get you over that line and you know albeit sometimes that is absolutely necessary sometimes you just gotta put it to the person and say look are you going to do this or what but i don't think it's it's necessarily all about always be closing but i think it should be always be conscious of closing because closing doesn't just happen you know it cracks me up where people say you know you just get a bunch of yeses all the way throughout the sales process and all of a sudden you know contracts come raining from the sky that's not the way it happens you do have to ask you know there was a saying a little while ago somebody told me that you know great closers are willing to put their client in a mild state of temporary discomfort just to kind of get them over the edge it's kind of like if anybody's ever gone um skydiving right and unless you're an expert you usually go with a person who's tandem on your back right and they're they're there for two reasons one is to make sure you pull the cord you don't die but the other reason is to make sure that you go right because so many people get up there they're like oh this is gonna be great you know get all this selfie jazz it's gonna be bad and they're up on the plane they're like all right now it's john you're up turning you're up next and you kind of waddle out there you tell your friends it'll be awesome and then you get to the edge and you're like whoa uh no absolutely not i'm not gonna do this uh why don't you go right and what does that person on your back do right they lean forward a little bit and they get you out there and then you're like oh this is the greatest time of my life it's the same thing with closing a lot of times people need to be nudged a little bit um at the end but also all the way throughout and so i'm going to talk a little bit today about you know the different types of closes and and how you how at least i think we should be thinking about it all right because you know there's two real well let me talk about the problem with closing in the first place sometimes if we're not conscious of it you know we close too early or we close too late right so we miss out on that opportunity or we we we fracture the rapport because we did it the wrong way you know for instance i'm a very hard closer i like the direct close in your face and and i actually appreciate it when people do that to me but when you soft close me i i won't say i get disappointed but i kind of do it's like you you did all this work now ask me for the business it's like when i used to interview sales reps you know uh one of my previous jobs i would say closing throughout the entire conversation like there's a closing role closing closing closing closing and i would answer and then i would end every single interview the exact same way i'd be like all right well thanks so much for coming in today i really appreciate it we'll be in touch and if that rep just got up and said okay thanks so much john i'm looking forward to hearing from you and left i wouldn't hire him i'm because if you didn't pick up on the clues that this was a closing role and then didn't close me on your way out the door how much more obvious can i make it right so but if you said hey john so thanks so much for your time looking forward to the next steps here just out of curiosity at this stage of the process you know would you hire me or where do i stand against the other competition or whatever it is if you did that i gave you a chance all right so but again if you do it the wrong way so again if you soft close me or didn't close me at all you lose credibility there but if you hard close somebody who is not a very direct closer you fracture that relationship too i think the biggest problem with closing is that it's almost always driven by the reps or the manager's agenda so for instance we're going to close the end of the week we're going to close the end of the quarter end of the month whatever it is into the year to get our quota and we push because we need it right and it's not on their timeline it's almost always on ours and that's why it comes across as pushy and salesy and as a side note that's why i love prospecting by the way because the number one solution to all of that is that i keep talking about is that big fat pipeline which is why i still to this day prospect on a regular basis so i don't ever have to be in that position where i need it by the end of the month or i need it by the end of the quarter again i want to put myself in a position where i want your business i don't need your business which is why i prospect all the time but that said as part of the qualification process that's why i'm trying to figure out what's your timeline what are your priorities and trying to back into that and lock you in on those because if i can figure out what your timeline is and what your compelling event is and all those different things then i can push then i can do challenge your sales stuff and and push you to get this thing done sooner rather than later and again push you over that edge a little bit with some rather direct questioning so that's to me the main issues with closing but again when done right it's an integral part of the sales process all the way through not just when you're closing for the contract you should be closing all the way throughout all right we'll talk about some of those things we can close for by the way if any of you have any questions feel free to chime in um i'm happy to answer anything i'll go on a riff here for another five ten minutes and then open up for q a but um let's talk again about the different types of closes right there's there's the hard close and the soft closes right uh and there's pros and cons to both if i were to ask you you know say sarah's a hard closer what are some of the adjectives that come to mind right well she's pushy she's aggressive she's she's very direct right and then if i were to say say jim's a soft closer what were some of the things that would come to mind with that right uh he's a pushover he's um you know kind of a softy those type of things right but what do jim sarah have in common they're both closers okay i didn't say is sarah a good hard closer and and jim a bad soft closer i said sarah's a hard closer jim's a soft closer they're both appropriate if used effectively the key is to practice and use both right because again there's pros and cons of both hard closers very direct you get what's going on right now um you know what's happening usually a hard closer is a little bit more in control but the negatives of a hard closer is it potentially over qualify an opportunity uh you get pushy a little bit and and you could fracture rapport again you did all this great job and then all of a sudden you know you just push a little bit hard and you turn me off completely especially for people who aren't very direct hard closing does not go over well trust me i've tried um but then on the soft close side positives of that it's way more natural to be a soft closer it definitely keeps borderline opportunities alive and it's it just feels better right i think it's it's nicer to just see what happens and and kind of coach people along the way and lead them to water if you will but the negatives super hard to forecast um you keep border i mean even though it keeps borderline opportunities alive these are the ones that are those 20 percenters that sit in the pipeline and just get pushed month over month over month over month because it wastes a lot of time soft closers and um you can fracture reports just like hard closers can like i said i'm a hard closer if in the right scenario you soft close me i kind of get a little disappointed and lose myself there so again the key is to practice and use both now for me i think of things all the way throughout the sales process to close these are all the gets things i'm trying to to understand from the client i'm trying to get a meeting with power right for instance that's a way that's a close like how am i going to close my non-decision maker to on how to get a meeting with their boss or their or the actual decision maker if i'm not thoughtful of that if i don't think that through and be proactive with that mindset when the time comes i'm going to fumble through that question and i'm probably going to be very um passive about it you know it's like oh hey you mind if i meet with your boss and and then a lot of times your confidence in delivering that really dictates the response that you get so you can close for meetings with power you can close for uh a trial if you will or i'm sorry a um the uh like a discount or a champion there's one that you can close for a champion where you know you can straight up say will you be my champion or you can do more of a trial close which would be like hey if i can get you that discount would you be my champion a trial close for instance is a um it's an if than statement effectively if i were to do this would you do that that's a trial close and then when it comes up when you do that then it's like okay now it's a hard close you know the stand if anybody's familiar with the sailor upfront contract where they say hey if this meeting goes well today and we did all this stuff would you feel comfortable moving forward that's a trial close and for instance i think we can can and should do the trial close all the way throughout the sales process just to kind of test where we are if you were to make a recommendation today would it be us that's a trial close okay so think of all the things that you can close for uh you can close for champions you can close for meetings of power you can close for a referral to somebody else you can close for a bigger contract a longer term engagement um you can close for all these different things and the key is to think about it before you walk into the situation i do objection handling training and closing training and my number one takeaway for both of those is be proactive versus reactive right most of us just react when it comes to objections or react when it comes oh you know this is the time to close but if you sit down and you think about it and you plan it out you can be far more effective and more natural with it and not stumble through it so for instance i sit down before i go into a meeting with anybody and say okay what am i trying to get out of this meeting what are my goals for this meeting again i want to get a meeting with power i want to get this type of information i want to get the signed contract or whatever i want to get the timeline so before i go in i say okay this is what i want to get now who am i closing am i go go going after somebody above the power line or below the power line my simple threshold for hard versus soft or direct versus indirect closes is the power line usually above the power line i've hard close pretty i'm i'm pretty direct with my close below the power line i'm usually a little softer right because that the personas typically fall in line with that as well so what am i closing for who am i closing and then how am i going to close for it like what am i going to say and am i going to and i'm just going to ask for it or am i going to be a little bit softer about it so it's worth thinking through some of the techniques okay again not to be the cheesy sales look at me i'm a closer but to understand what the different techniques are and and therefore how to apply them when i went through closing training i never really thought of my closing style i just closed you know i was and i relied mostly on my gut of when it was time to ask that question or when it was time to to push a little bit or whatever and i'll be honest my gut wasn't always right um i missed out on a lot of opportunities i think a lot of buying signs where i missed or pushed too hard again because it was at the end of the month or the end of the quarter now i'm very thoughtful about it and by putting labels on on the closes when i went through the training it really helped me think them think about them a little bit differently and say oh okay now i understand what that is i might have done it before but now that there's a label on it i i can figure out where to use this and how to use it so i'll share with you a couple of those and then like i said open it up for some questions here but some soft closes let's talk about um yeah let's talk about some soft closes here actually no let's talk about some hard closes so there's the direct close which is straight up hey you're gonna sign the contract and that's usually just at the end of the sales process and it's it's usually for executives like c-level executives and usually hey not even just are you going to sign a contract but are you going to sign the contract today right that's a pretty obvious one then there's the objection close which is more along the lines of when somebody's objecting to whatever you're putting in front of them whether it's price or whether it's a certain features or something like that you're like okay well look if we were to address that concern would you be able to move forward with this that's a hard close and what you're trying to do there is just to understand is that the real objection and is that the only one right because that's what i ultimately want to get to i want to get to one objection clients kill us with hey and this and this and this and this and this and we're all over the place but if i can pin them down to one thing and say hey look if we were to address that would you move forward would you sign the contract today that's again a little bit more directive is direct especially if you're saying like would you sign it right now if i can address that um then there's the reverse close which is why don't you think you should sign today this one's really effective actually with the um with people who are wafflers people who are like ah yeah i don't know i know we should but you know and they're kind of on the fence about it what you do there is you just put it back on them it's like all right well why wouldn't you do this help me understand and the reason that's hard is because it's awkward right effectively what you're saying is why wouldn't you date me why am i ugly right um and you're putting it on them to tell you that over the phone or in person then there's the negative or the walk away close which is actually one of my favorites where you actually say hey you know what you draw your walk away line and you say once they go below that line you're like look i appreciate your time here at this point we're going to have to respectfully remove ourselves from consideration on this one because it's just not worth us doing business at that level so i appreciate it we're going to take our stuff and go home effectively right this one if you've done your job if you've shown value all the way throughout the sales process and you um and you know you're the better solution compared to all the other ones out there this one's one of the more powerful closes again the two things you have to be very conscious of with this one is you have to know what your walk away line is going in and you have to be willing to walk away you can't be like all right i'm out of here look we're going to respectfully remove ourselves some consideration i'm out hey i'm i'm leaving you know you can't do that you have to be strong with that one and say all right appreciate it again if you've done your job showing value and you know you're the better solution this one has a super like real strong psychological power to this one because it gets people to you know it shifts the power i mean they have all the power because they know you want their money but when you take that off the table and then say no actually i don't need your money you know thank you very much it's like well wait a minute and they'll usually come back to you for instance if you've ever bought a car if you've ever bought a car and you haven't used the walk away clothes then you're leaving money on the table all right i like this one and again i'm going to go back to big fat pipeline if you have a big fat pipeline you can pull that one all the time and i personally do so those are just some examples of um hard closes now some softer closes that uh a little bit uh a little bit softer and a little bit more natural to implement throughout the sales process are stuff like the assumptive close this is where you say to kind of a project manager or a key influencer somebody like that you're like so when do you want to begin implementation so when would you want to start this like that's not a hard close you're just saying hey so when do you think you want to launch you know launch the software when do you want to do the training whatever it is just to kind of gauge where they are with it and if they're like well we're not at that point yet we don't know we still have to evaluate okay then you know you got some work to do there if you're like oh you know we need this by this date okay now you can back into something there then there's the trial close i talked about this one before where again it's the if the and statement if you were to make a recommendation today would it be us um if i can get you that discount would you sign the contract if the trial goes well would you be able to move forward um those those type of things and again i think you should and i think we should use those all the way throughout the sales process just to gauge where we are throughout okay and then there's the let's see there's the uh choice close i like this one this is more hey so do you want a two or three year contract on this one you give them a choice either one of them are no by the way that's the key to this one you got to be cool with both options you know you can't say hey do you want to come with a or b and they say b and you're like god damn it i really wish you were going to say a but that one kind of puts them in a position to say uh well you know i'd rather have a you know a two-year contract than a three-year contract or i'd rather um you know have 20 licenses instead of 50 licenses or something like that at that discount level or something and then the last one uh that i'll highlight here is the porcupine close this is where when they keep peppering you with questions well does it do this and does it do that and does it do this and does it do that and it's a lot of times when a client keeps nitpicking we get stuck in this very defensive mode of i don't know let me get back to you uh you know let me see and we answer them one by one and instead of doing that at a certain point you should probably you should just stop and say i don't know do you want it to come with that so when they say oh does it do this and does it do that i don't know is that important to you do you want it to come with that so you put it right back on them i don't know quite why it's called the porcupine close i think it's because you you know it's kind of like you prick them back i don't know but whatever the idea is you clarify okay is that important a lot of times like well i don't know i was just kind of asking okay can we stay focused on the main pieces of this that we had discussed all the way throughout this and then you know if we can get to that part we can address those as they come so again those are some options as far as closing when i was when those were identified to me i was able to now think of them a little bit differently and say okay again now what am i closing for who am i closing and how am i closing for it and now i am so much more effective with my clothes because i'm thoughtful about it so the title of this is always be closing i don't know i don't necessarily know you think you always have to be closing again i think you should just be always conscious of closing you should always be thinking about what you're closing who you're closing and by the way if you get an objection so say you go for a certain close and they object to it they say no what's your secondary get what do you what's your alternative here that's still going to make you feel okay that this deal's moving in the right direction or you're on the same page with the client because maybe sometimes you were a little bit aggressive with with what you were trying to close on uh always make sure you have a secondary gate for both for two reasons one is if they object you have something to fall back on the other is if they say yes you have something else to ask for who knows they might be in a giving mood all right so make sure you think of that as you go into the process and practice closing a huge recommendation i have by the way because closing is is a lot about confidence and how you ask the question if you're offered and asking the question it comes across across the salesy and gross right so that's why people tend to push back on it but if you're smooth with it if you're if you're very natural with it and you're just very direct people tend to and give you answers and also be very comfortable with silence if you will when you ask a closing question there's a whole adage of whoever speaks first loses i think that's kind of bullshit but there is something to be said for asking a closing question and then letting the person think about it and being totally cool with silence and you got to be better with silence than everybody else is because silence is awkward right and somebody's going to want to fill in those gaps so ask the question then shut up going back to my huge recommendation i have for closing is practice and i don't mean just practice with your clients and your prospects i mean practice every day i mean again sales is one of the best professions in the world mainly because we can practice sales everywhere we go you know every time you go to a restaurant you know try to try to get free dessert or every time you go to a clothing store try to get the discount see if the sale is coming up next week if you can get it this week if you're going to a hotel ask for the upgrade just ask why not those are harmless situations that it might be a little awkward to ask but the worst thing that happens is somebody says no and what you do there is you build up your confidence and so that when it matters when you're about to go make it happen and close for whatever it means putting money in your pocket now you're again you're way more natural at it you're way more confident okay so go practice closing everywhere you go let's light it up for some questions here i got one from uh metty uh actually came in a little bit before the session and this was uh on how to create urgency so the question is how do you create urgency when a prospect tells you we'll look into it next week next month or whatever it is um i think the i think creating urgency is probably one of the hardest things to do in sales okay so we can we gotta back out from that point and say okay what do we do to get there and my whole thing is i am a very priority-based seller so i dig for priorities i dig for understanding really what is gonna what's gonna move the dial here and where are they trying to go as an organization because if i can't tie my solution to one or two of those the likelihood of me creating urgency is not high but if i find out where your ceo stood up in the beginning of the year and said we have to grow 30 this year and we have to increase our margins and we have to whatever it is if i can tie my solution to those now i can push a little bit on urgency and also that's why i try to figure out what your timeline is for making this decision so i can back into that like if you need a go live date by this time well then we can back in and say okay well it's going to probably take two weeks to get the contract going it's going to take a week for implementation it's going to do a little bit for training so we're a month and a half out from a legit go live date so that's why i need that contract now all right so those are some ways of creating urgency but i think one of the biggest things i can recommend on this one is something that i think is one of the things that we should close i think one of the most important things that we can get at any stage of the sales process which is a defined next step scheduled on the calendar so when somebody says yeah um you know what john let's review this and we'll get back to you next week i simply say great when next week oh you know what we'll get back to you at the end probably friday something like that fantastic you know what you got you get and i'll say this and you can play around with this one because i like it you go um actually you know what you got your calendar in front of you and then remember shut up because there'll be that little awkward pause where they realize that you got them because if they say no to that they're blatantly lying to your face okay and usually by the way usually if you do this to a vp sales you'll hear damn i wish my reps would do this shit um let's get this on the calendar but if you put it there you see closing question you got your calendar in front of you why don't we just pick a time right this way i can get a yes or no from you either way and we don't have to play chase those two things are important by the way this way we can i can get a yes or a no from you either way letting them know it's a hundred percent okay to tell me no and we don't have to play chase letting you know we're going to play chase right and i'm better at it than you are okay that's my job here for crying out loud so but if we get it on the calendar and we if we need to reschedule we can but at least it'll be there so that again we don't have to play chase so you know many there's a lot of factors in the creating urgency i would look back at what questions you're asking to really uncover the true priorities the true timeline those type of things and dig as deep as you possibly can with that and then lock them into a defined next step while you have them on the calendar i've talked about this before on facebook uh make it happen one day is you know the rule of reciprocity there's it's actually a human condition that talks about how as as human beings we're all bound even driven to repay debt and when somebody asks you for something there's a fleeting moment that they actually feel obligated to give you something in return and if they ask for it right then and there it's actually quite easy for them to give you and so that's why when somebody says send me information and we say great when you want to follow up next week and then we try to get that meeting on the calendar next week that's why it's so damn hard that's why we touch base and check in 45 times but if i say send me information and i say great when do you want to schedule a call so we can follow up on that you got your calendar in front of you it's actually easier for them to give it to you right then and there because they just asked for something from you okay so try those things out see if you can lock people in but also see if you can dig a little bit deeper to understand what real urgency is for them how you can create they might not see it but by asking some questions in a certain way you might be able to uncover it and then hammer on it and a lot of that has to do with their priorities as a business okay so see if there's any other questions here it doesn't look like it for today but um actually a couple more nope all right so anyways i do have to bounce a little bit earlier i have a uh i have a webinar that i have to do here at one o'clock um keep paying attention though on this one because first of all i'm going to be coming out a ton more content coming up here soon and also in a few weeks here i'm going to have a good friend of mine on make it happen mondays and we're going to be talking about personal and professional branding and you're not going to want to miss it my boy coca sexton uh we just talked this morning because i actually have some questions for coca on my own personal and professional branding and how to mix those two uh so hopefully it'll be a pretty interesting conversation that one's coming up in a few weeks here uh i think next week we'll figure out what a topic is but if you have a question about a topic and you want me to talk about something hit me up on facebook live on snapchat on instagram all those different ones and just be like hey john if you could kind of go off on something like this or have a conversation around this on the next make it happen mondays i'd really appreciate it because i'm always looking for ideas from from the audience here all right anyways everybody summarize think about closing be proactive about it and practice it all right let's make it a great week make it happen have a great day so so you you you you you you