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    Closing Techniques (That Really Work!)
    Closing Techniques (That Really Work!)
    Closing Techniques (That Really Work!)
    Ebook171 pages2 hours

    Closing Techniques (That Really Work!)

    By Stephan Schiffman

    2.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Many salespeople can line up prospects, recite the benefits of their product or service, and stir the interest of their client. But when it comes to actually closing the deal, they fail and the sale falls apart. That's where sales guru Stephan Schiffman comes inand saves the sale. In this book, Schiffman reveals the pioneering techniques that have helped more than half a million salespeople nail the sales that matter. This book includes chapters on:
    • the four words to avoid during meetings
    • why salespeople shouldn't mix business with pleasure
    • the most important word when closing a sale
    • working existing accounts
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateFeb 18, 2009
    ISBN9781440520273
    Closing Techniques (That Really Work!)
    Author

    Stephan Schiffman

    Stephan Schiffman(New York, NY) has trained more than half a million salespeople at wide range of corporations including IBM, AT&T, Motorola, Sprint, and Cigna. A popular speaker, he is the author of numerous bestselling books with eight million in print, including Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work!) and The 25 Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople.

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      Book preview

      Closing Techniques (That Really Work!) - Stephan Schiffman

      CLOSING

      TECHNIQUES

      (That Really Work!)

      4TH EDITION

      STEPHAN SCHIFFMAN

      AMERICA’S # 1 CORPORATE SALES TRAINER

      9781598698206_0002_001

      Copyright © 2009, 2004, 2003, 1999, 1990, 1988, 1987 by Stephan Schiffman

      All rights reserved.

      This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any

      form without permission from the publisher; exceptions are

      made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

      Published by

      Adams Business, an imprint of Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

      57 Littlefield Street, Avon, MA 02322. U.S.A.

      www.adamsmedia.com

      ISBN 10: 1-59869-820-6

      ISBN 13: 978-1-59869-820-6

      eISBN: 978-1-44052-027-3

      Printed in the United States of America.

      J I H G F E D C B A

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      is available from the publisher.

      This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

      —From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the

      American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

      This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.

      For information, please call 1-800-289-0963.

      To AFS, again

      CONTENTS

      Introduction to Fourth Edition

      Introduction

      PART 1: THE FUNDAMENTALS

      Chapter 1: A Third of a Season

      Chapter 2: The Definition of Sales

      Chapter 3: No Gimmicks

      Chapter 4: Objections That Aren’t

      Chapter 5: A Brief Review of the Sales Cycle

      Chapter 6: Why People Buy

      Chapter 7: Openings Precede Closings

      Chapter 8: The Power of an Idea

      PART 2: BREAKTHROUGH IDEAS FOR

      CLOSING SUCCESS

      Chapter 9: A Few Words about the Ideas You’ll

      Find in This Section of the Book

      Chapter 10: Know Your Product or Service—and

      Be Creative in Considering What It Can Do

      for Someone

      Chapter 11: Closings and Openings

      Chapter 12: Don’t Overwhelm the Prospect

      Chapter 13: Selling to Committees

      Chapter 14: Selling Backward/Forward

      Chapter 15: Understanding Responses

      Chapter 16: Taking Responsibility

      Chapter 17: If It Wasn’t Business, They’d Call It Pleasure

      PART 3: RETHINKING YOUR RELATIONSHIP

      WITH THE PROSPECT

      Chapter 18: Write This Down

      Chapter 19: Four Categories

      Chapter 20: Your Two Objectives for Your First In-Person Meeting

      Chapter 21: The Option at the End of the First Visit

      Chapter 22: A Horror Story

      Chapter 23: Four Words You Never Want to Say*

      Chapter 24: Verifying Your Information

      Chapter 25: What Is a Presentation?

      Chapter 26: To Script or Not to Script

      Chapter 27: The Simple Closing Statement, Revisited

      Chapter 28: I’ll Have to Think about It

      Chapter 29: Dealing with Obstacles

      Chapter 30: Money, Money

      Chapter 31: Some General Ideas for Closing Success

      Chapter 32: The Leadership Role

      Chapter 33: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel—and Keep in Touch!

      Epilogue: Beyond the Close

      Appendix A: Sample Cold Calling Scripts

      Appendix B: Sample Sales Dialogues

      Appendix C: Seven Questions You Should Be Able to Answer about Your Prospect Before You Try to Close the Deal

      Appendix D: Six Tactical Questions You Should Be Able to Answer about Any Prospect You Plan to Close

      Appendix E: Eight Foundation Principles of Effective Negotiating

      Appendix F: Eleven Practical Rules for Negotiating the Best Deal

      Appendix G: The Sales Negotiation Model

      About the Author

      Acknowledgments

      I wish to thank Curt Schleier for help making this book a reality and, especially, Daniele, Jennifer, and Anne, whose patience and understanding were invaluable. I’d also like to acknowledge here all the families of salespeople, who put up with the deadlines, quotas, difficult prospects, hard sales, and obsessive work that are part of any good salesperson’s life.

      Introduction to Fourth Edition

      I’m a firm believer that the basics of sales are universal and timeless. That’s why I wasn’t surprised when I recently sat down and reread the original version of this book. Though it was published about fifteen years ago, it seems as relevant today as it was back then.

      Why then a new edition? There are several reasons, including the ugly picture of me on the back cover of the old one. But realistically, while most basics of sales in general and closing in particular have remained the same, the world around us has changed.

      I’ve probably been using computers for three decades or more, so I am technologically experienced. I can’t remember for sure, but I doubt that back then I would have or even could have imagined how important a tool the computer has become. I never dreamed how much information would be available to me—and all that I could do with it.

      Much of what we have now probably existed back then, but it was all far more complicated to figure out and run. The increased power of computers meant software programmers had the ability to make software more accessible, almost intuitive.

      But something else has occurred that I find most interesting. Not only has the computer become more sophisticated, but I have. In part, that’s because I’ve grown older and wiser. I’m always open to new ideas and techniques. And ideas are everywhere. One new chapter came out of a book I read about a mountain climber.

      I get new ideas from my students. It seems at least once a month—and frequently more often than that—a student will ask a question that forces me to examine a problem. While I never set out to be a salesman, one of the things that ultimately kept me in the field was that every day was a new challenge. Surely, the basics of sales were the same, but every sale was a little different, an opportunity to grow and learn something with every sale—and even more from every disappointment. I’ve been in this business a long time, and had my share of ups and downs, But one thing I can say with certainty is that I’ve never been bored.

      Hence the revised and updated version of Closing Techniques (That Really Work!). By the fact that you purchased this book, I presume (and hope) you, too, are awed by the challenges of our profession, open to new ideas, and eager to try them out.

      I’m confident that those of you who fit into this category will find much useful in the following pages.

      I meant what I said about being open to new ideas. If you have any about any facet of sales, any suggestions at all, I’m anxious to hear them. Send me an e-mail at sschiffman@steveschiffman.com.

      Finally, most salespeople I’ve met regard the close as the most difficult part of the sales process. I disagree. In fact, I think it’s the simplest. If you’ve done everything properly—that is you’ve contacted the right person with the right product at the right price and are able to deliver it where and when the prospect needs it— well, then the close is just a mere formality.

      It only becomes difficult when you haven’t done your homework. Which, of course, is something you’ll never do once you’ve read this book.

      Stephan Schiffman

      New York, New York

      February 2009

      Introduction

      Is closing really the most difficult part of the sale?

      You’d think so to hear people talk. Most salespeople are terrified by the idea of closing. Often, they view it as a final conflict with their prospects, the point at which they must pull out the heavy artillery and finally get the job done.

      But even though closing the sale is the part of the job nearly every salesperson dreads, it can actually be the easiest part of the sales cycle. That’s the argument I make in this book, and I firmly believe that if you follow the steps you’re about to see outlined, you’ll agree with me about the ease of closing by the time you finish this program and implement it. You won’t agree with me because you appreciate the ideas on some abstract level. You’ll agree with me because your commission checks will be bigger, you’ll find that you’re working more efficiently than ever, and you aren’t scared of your prospects any more.

      I’ve worked with small companies, medium-sized companies, and Fortune 500 companies. I’ve trained more than 450,000 salespeople in more than 900 companies throughout the world. The ideas on the pages of this book have worked for them, and they can work for you.

      I’m going to show you how to integrate the closing process into a productive, professional sales cycle. I’m going to show you how to turn prospects into allies, not adversaries. I’m going to show you how to make manipulative tricks and high-pressure techniques obsolete.

      Read what follows. Give it an honest try. And you will change your career for the better.

      Stephan Schiffman

      New York, New York

      PART

      1

      The Fundamentals

      CHAPTER 1

      A Third of a Season

      I believe that selling is not complex.

      Surprising as it may seem, that’s a minority opinion. There are a lot of sales experts out there who will tell you that I’m dead wrong, and that sales is a very complicated matter involving elaborate levels of persuasion and interpersonal manipulation. These people have written a lot of books. Most of the modern sales books, I think, are really rehashes of old, essentially confrontational techniques that came into vogue in the 1950s—or even earlier.

      I Decided to Read a Lot of Books

      As part of the research for this project, I bought and read every single book having to do with the topic closing the sale that I could get my hands on. After reading them all, I found out that most of them had essentially the same message. If anything, the emphasis would vary slightly from book to book, but the central idea was identical.

      Each book stressed either outside research or in-person prob-ing— and then making a presentation meant to close the sale. And each of these books—there were dozens of them—ended up giving you specific techniques that you could employ to convince the person to buy.

      And my feeling, after reviewing those books, was that this common (actually, nearly universal) approach to training salespeople was one of the chief reasons people often feel that sales is ridiculous today.

      Closing the Sale—The Tricks of the Trade

      Closing the sale is not a gimmick, but you’d never know it from reading the books that are out there. One of the books I came across passed on 187 different tricks to use with prospects, each designed to convince him or her to buy. There are a lot of them. Most are remarkably dumb.

      One trick they tell you to pull is to roll your uncapped fountain pen across the desk to the prospect, who will pick it up to avoid being spattered. You then

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