“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” – Wayne Gretzge
Last week one of my clients was listening to a radio ad from someone who did sales coaching. He made the statement, “Four out of five salespeople never ask for the order”. My client wanted to know if that was true. I said it was.
First, let’s define “asking for the order”. That refers to anything you say that is intended to advance the sale. The most common way of doing this is closes or trail closes.:
Trail close: A trail close is used when you feel the sale is moving along well, and you want to take the temperature. Here are some examples:
Q. Do you have any questions or concerned that I haven’t covered?
Q. Would you prefer to be contacted by email or phone? (Preference close)
Q. Why don’t you give us a try?
Q. If you’ll just authorize this, we’ll get started right way with…
Q. Is this what you are looking for?
The close: A closing questions asks directly for the order. We often start with trial closes so as not to overwhelm the prospect. When we have received a warm response from a trial close, this could be a good time to go for the final close:
Q. Would you like to give it a try?
Q. Would you like to go ahead with it?
Trail closes are safe since they are usually opinion-asking questions. Asking a direct closing questions may drive the sales process backwards if they are not ready. But if we have asked a series of trail closes and have consistently received a warm response, take the plunge and ask for the order!
