Encore: Always Be Closing?

I hope you're enjoying your day off. I know I am, even though there's really no days off in this game. Enjoy this encore presentation of the Make It Happen Monday podcast. 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. I actually took some downtime this weekend. I spent it with the family, went down to Rhode Island, hung out on the beaches, and did some crab fishing, which was interesting with my daughter. But anyways, so yeah, today, and actually last week, just to catch you all up, last week I was in studio in Vegas for at least two days there with Mainstage Media, by the way. Look them up, David, fantastic as far as content is concerned, and just quality of their output is incredible.

So super excited because I put all my Drive Into Clothes content online and also cut up a whole bunch bunch of tips and nuggets and stuff 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 instead of trying to remember what you went through in a training two weeks ago or three weeks ago, there's going to 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 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, one of the modules I put together this past week in Vegas was, and it reminded me about what I wanted to talk about today, which is closing. Right. And I posted this on to prep for it last week. It's an always be closing with the whole Glengarry Glenoss, Alec Baldwin thing up there. And I actually got a lot of feedback. If you go look on that LinkedIn post, there was a lot of people having some heated debate on what closing was, why you should close, and being super cheesy about it versus actually thinking about it. And I did that for a reason, you know, with Alec Baldwin, because I think there's a perception that closing is really just about, hey, I'm going to, you know, I got to close you and I got to 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 got to 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 total 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 this 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, 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 and 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, ah, this is going to be great. You know, get all this selfie. And they're up on the plane. They're like, all right, now it's John. You're up. You're up next. And you kind of waddle out there. You tell your friends it's going to be awesome. And then you get to the edge and you're like, whoa, uh, no, absolutely not. I'm not going to 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, ah, it was great. 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. 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 fractured 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 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, uh, 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 got to close the end of the week, we got to close the end of the quarter, end of the month, whatever it is, end of 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 challenger sales stuff 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. 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 let's talk again about the different types of closes, right? There's the hard close and the soft closes, right? 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 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?

He's a pushover, he's, you know, kind of a softie, those types of things, right? But what do Jim and Sarah have in common? They're both closers, okay? I didn't say is Sarah a good hard closer 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. 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 overqualify an opportunity. You get pushy a little bit 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. 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 just feels better. I think it's nicer to just see what happens and kind of coach people along the way and lead them to water, if you will. But the negatives, super hard to forecast. 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 you can fracture rapport 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 my from 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 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 on how to get a meeting with their boss 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 passive about it.

You know, it's like, ah, hey, you mind if I meet with your boss? 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 a trial, if you will, or I'm sorry, 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, it's an if-then 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, if anybody's familiar with the Sandler 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 and should do the trial close all the way throughout the sales process, just to kind of test where we are. Hey, 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. 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. 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. 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 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'm pretty direct with my clothes. Below the power line, I'm usually a little softer because 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? What am I going to say? And am I 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.

Again, not to be the cheesy sales, look at me, I'm a closer, but to understand what the different techniques are and therefore how to apply them. When I went through closing training, I never really thought of my closing style. I just closed. And I was, and I relied mostly on my gut of when it was time to ask a question or when it was time to push a little bit or whatever. And I'll be honest, my gut wasn't always right. 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've 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 going to 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 is 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? Cause 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 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? Tell 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 walkaway close, which is actually one of my favorites where you actually say, Hey, you know what? You draw your walkaway 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 walkaway 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 suit, like real strong psychological power to this one, because it gets people to, you know, it shifts the power. I mean, they, they have all the power cause 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 walkaway clothes, then you're leaving money on the table. 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 or somebody like that, where you're like, so when do you want to begin implementation? So when would you want to start this? Right. 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 no, we need this by this date. Okay. Now you can back into something there. Then there's a trial close. I talked about this one before where again, it's the, if the Dan statement, if you were to make a recommendation today, would it be us?

If I can get you that discount, would you sign the contract? If the trial goes well, would you be able to move forward? Those, those types 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 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 or 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 and 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'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, no, 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 or 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.

Always make sure you have a secondary get 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 as 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 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. You got to be better with silence than everybody else is because silence is awkward, right? And somebody is 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 sales 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 Betty, 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, uh, 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 got to 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 going to, what's going to 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. 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, 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? And I'll say this and you can play around with this one.

Cause 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. Cause 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 of 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 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. Okay. 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 it, 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 types 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, make it happen one day is, you know, the rule of reciprocity.

It's actually a human condition that talks about how 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 do 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 actually a couple more. Nope. All right. So anyways, I do have to bounce a little bit earlier. I have a, I have a webinar that I have to do here at one o'clock. Keep paying attention though on this one, because first of all, I'm going to be coming out of 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. Cause 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.

Cause 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. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.