The Natural Laws of Closing: Traditional Closing Is Dead!

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CHAPTER ONE

THE PIÈCE DE RÉSISTANCE

As the old saying goes, selling is a tough way to make an easy living. And the only way to make a living in selling is if you can close deals. First you must understand this fact:

You may be the best in your company at contacting and engaging clients, presenting products and services, and still end up broke. Why? Because, if you’re always selling, then by definition, you’re not closing! This concept is based on one of the natural laws of closing.

LAW: Closing Is Not Selling. Selling Is Not Closing.

While you may use some of the same tools, such as focus, communication, and persuasion, still selling and closing are not the same. They are two different disciplines.

You can sell a customer on the features and advantages and present new ways of doing things to your hearts content. But you either seal the deal, or you don’t get paid. Just remember, if you’re still selling, you’re not closing. This is because you’re dealing with two entirely different internal factors influencing the customer at the close.

Knowing this distinction changes everything and can make a world of difference in your bank account and your career.

Let’s clear up one more thing. The inability to differentiate the important from the trivial can lead to failure in any profession. Some things really are more important than others.

For example, lets say your car doesn’t start. Obviously, whether the car is washed or not is unimportant to solving the problem. Checking to see that the battery cables are secure might be a better tactic to start with. It’s a matter of evaluating the relative importance.

LAW: Natural Laws are far more valuable than insignificant or irrelevant facts.

Now, read that law again. Got it? Okay. With that understanding, let’s continue.

When you start closing, you must stop selling.

Example: Using a fire hose to paint a house, won’t work. It’s the wrong tool for the job.

It’s the same with selling and closing.

Advice: When you reach the step in the overall sales procedure where you start closing, you must seamlessly switch to the tools and techniques of closing. Do not keep on selling or you’ll oversell yourself out of the deal. Ignore this advice at your peril.

LAW: Overselling is the enemy of closing.

Identifying and understanding the underlying principles of each discipline will dramatically enhance both your selling and closing skills. This is a secret that all power closers know and use. It makes it possible to harness the raw energy of the natural laws that empower your techniques and methods, whether selling or closing.

Expertise in selling is important to be sure. But, the cold, hard fact is that closing sales pays the bills. Salespeople are many. Power closers are few, but far more valuable.

THE ZEN OF CLOSING

The Zen of Closing is a state of being fully alive and in the moment.

It is also the simplest, easiest, and most effective way to approach closing sales in the 21st Century.

This is a new and exciting way of thinking about closing sales. It is something to be experienced, not just debated in some ivory tower, detached from the real world.

The Zen of Closing is an idea or a concept. It’s invisible. It can’t be bought, sold, weighed, measured, heard or tasted. It cannot be touched, but it can be felt through your senses. It is intangible, but at the same time it is the pathway to effortless mastery of all your methods, techniques and tactics of closing sales.

It is a state of being here, now. Free from doubt, uncertainty and insecurity. The intent underlying the Zen of Closing is also simple, profound, and supremely powerful. And above all, it is intended for everyday use.

The spiritual goal of Zen Buddhism is called Satori or Kensho, which mean a sudden comprehension, understanding, or enlightenment and consciousness of self.

The goal in the practical practice of Zen Buddhism is to become fully aware, in the here and now, free of anxiety of the past or worry about the future. It means to be completely in the present moment, living life fully and authentically in the here and now.

The application of these concepts to closing sales means to be in the moment with full attention on the customer with the purpose of assisting them to get what they really want.

The following two statements may help to simplify and clarify the message.

Doubt is contagious. It is limiting and contrary to one’s survival. Doubt is the source of fear, worry, anxiety, uncertainty about or lack of confidence in ones abilities to handle environmental challenges of life.

Confidence is the opposite. It is the feeling of conviction, certainty and self-assurance in one’s ability to face and handle the environmental challenges of life. Confidence also can be very contagious.

Simplicity is an idea often associated with the practice of Zen Meditation. And the practice of Zen itself is simple to use if you just practice being fully present, right here, right now.

Try it for yourself. Just command yourself to "be here, now." And do it without filtering your perception through outdated biases, negative beliefs, false assumptions, oddball opinions and preconceptions. Just be here, now. It’s just that easy and just that hard.

I do appreciate that comparing closing sales with Zen may be a stretch for some. But I also believe the concept of Zen may well be the hidden secret that all power closers are using instinctively. In fact, by whatever name, applying the principles of Zen to closing sales may be the true source of their success.

These four factors are worth repeating:

1.When you are closing, your attention must be fully in the moment, totally focused on the customer.

2.Your attention must not be on personal problems that you carry with you (the past).

3.Your attention must not be on your potential commission (the future).

4.Your attention must be only on the customer at this moment. (the present)

Following is a natural law of closing that explains why this works the way it does:

LAW: Attention follows Attention

If your attention is on the past or the future, by definition, your attention is NOT in the present moment. And, if your attention is on your overdrawn checking account for example, don't be surprised when the customer comes up with his or her own money problems during the close.

Hint: What your attention is on can and does influence the customer.

If you’re anxious, they’ll feel it instinctively and begin to feel anxious. If you’re nervous, they will be too even if they can’t identify the source. Attention does follow attention.

You can test this out for yourself. The next time you're talking with someone, just direct your attention to something else unexpectedly. Stop and look out the window or listen carefully to some imagined noise. I guarantee that the other person’s attention will follow your own. They’ll usually ask what you're looking at or what you heard. Attention really does follow attention.

Ideally, the customer's attention should be either on you (in the present) or how they will feel when they own what they're buying. (in the future) So if you direct your attention to the customer and to what they hope or expect to own, their attention will tend to follow suit. This process puts you in the driver’s seat to cause the close to occur.

Trust me on this. If the customer unexpectedly brings up that they’re worried about money, cost, or price, the chances are good that you caused it.

It's very easy to slip into the habit of mentally calculating your commission when it looks certain that the deal will close, but if you do, you take your attention off the customer; a big no, no! It's a bad habit, one that is costing you money or at least creating more work for you at the close. Just don't do it.

If you follow this path, everything else, all the mechanical aspects of closing sales will begin to fall into place naturally, without effort or force.

I believe you'll see the process of closing become much smoother and stress-free for both you and the customer; just as it should be.

ALWAYS BE CLOSING? – NOT!

A.B.C. is an acronym for a well-worn phrase, familiar to anyone in the sales profession. "Always Be Closing" has been the mantra for inspirational and sales motivation speakers since the movie, "Glengarry Glenn Ross," released late in the past century.

To be fair, the ABC concept of closing is direct and straightforward, In spite of the fact that it contains a fatal flaw when it proclaims that:

"Only one thing counts in this life . . . get them to sign on the line which is dotted. You close, or you hit the bricks."

The message is that when you focus your full attention on the close, success is yours. Well . . . maybe. But, I believe there may be more to know about this.

When I think of the phrase, "Always Be Closing" I’m reminded of this old saying attributed to American humorist, Josh Billings, which states:

"It ain’t what people don’t know that’s the trouble. It’s what they know for sure that just ain’t so."

The ABC concept above fits into the "just ain’t so" category. I’ll explain why. Many salespeople end up thinking that closing equals money and money equals closing. But a careful look is revealing. If the close is the same as money, then the A.B.C. concept means that your attention is on money, doesn’t it?

By definition, if your attention is entirely focused on money, it’s not on the customer. When your money becomes more important than the client, you’re no longer the solution. You’ve become the problem.

Why? It’s obvious.

The bottom line is this: focusing only on money does not add value to the customer. Instead, it adds excessive stress to sealing the deal, which makes it harder on everyone. Think about it:

Customers were hoping you were the solution they were looking for. But, now you’ve become the problem. Happily, a slight adjustment in your attitude can change all this. Just by shifting your attention away from getting something from the customer and start focusing on doing something with the customer, your job becomes easier and the customer much happier.

Sound good?

WHAT’S MISSING?

What’s the best way to close every deal? When I’m training and consulting with sales people, they all want to know the answer to the question, What am I missing? I understand how they feel, as I’ve been in the same situation myself.

Example: During my years in the trenches of selling and closing sales over the past thirty years, just like every other salesperson, I would occasionally come up short. In my early days, I would even try to persuade myself that "I was close, and, I almost pulled it off." And then try to convince myself that I had done everything that could have been done. Yet, I was always left with this nagging feeling that something was missing.

Then, one day, like a whack on the side of the head, the answer to the question, What was I missing? came to me like a bolt out of the blue:

I didn’t know what I didn’t know!

I had been operating on the false assumption that I knew everything I needed to know, (a false assumption). Luckily, there was a professional sales closings seminar happening locally that weekend. I decided I needed some help from an expert. It turned out much better than ever expected. I felt like he was reading my mind. Everything he said related directly to my problem, especially when he said the following:

A light bulb went off and everything suddenly got brighter. This changes everything! It was just what I needed to hear at that moment.

Grinding away on the symptom of the problem, or forcing the customer to buy, only serves to intensify resistance. I was focusing on only one step (closing the sale) in a series of actions leading to a particular result. And, even worse I was convinced that the customer was the source of the trouble, blaming them for not closing the deal.

I realized that the three words in the English language that are the hardest for anyone to say, "I was wrong," applied to me. I was so fixed my commission that I neglected the most important element of the process.

Closing the sale was not about me, the sales manager, or even the company. It was only about serving the customer. Once I was able to get my attention unfixed from myself and keep it on the customer, everything became easier for me. I also realized that when someone (including me) doesn’t understand something, they become uncertain and doubtful. And if they are uncertain, they can’t decide. And, if they can’t decide, they won’t buy!

It was as simple as that. I had been concentrating on the wrong objective. Once I shifted my attention to helping the customer make a decision instead of forcing them to decide, everything fell in to place.

And most importantly, it worked effortlessly!

WHEN TO STOP SELLING?

Selling and closing are not the same, but they are not adversaries. They are part of the same team, symbiotic in nature and mutually beneficial with one relying on the other. This fact rises to the level of a natural law of closing:

LAW: If You’re Always Selling, You’re Not Closing.

Selling and closing are two separate disciplines, each with a different purpose, using different tools, methods, and techniques. This also answers the age-old question of why many can sell, but few can close.

Just like on an old steam engine train the hat the engineer wears is different than the hat the conductor wears. They each have different duties and responsibilities.

Stop wearing your selling hat when you should be wearing your closing hat. Selling and Closing are not the same breed of cat. You can’t sell your way to a close. Now you know. You can thank me later.

IT’S NO SECRET

Customers want to feel that they are the most important person in the room. The reason for this is obvious:

LAW: The most important thing to the customer is the CUSTOMER.

From their viewpoint, their purposes, their drives, their desires, their wants and needs are what you should be thinking about. Any discussion about predicting human behavior must include this fact: If you’re not thinking about them, they’re not thinking about you. Attention really does tend to follow attention. So if you keep your attention on the customer, they’ll tend to keep their attention on you.

WHAT’S MORE IMPORTANT?

What are you thinking about? If your attention is fixated on what you need instead of what they want, you’re setting yourself up for a failed close.

LAW: What the customer WANTS is always more important than what you need.

Your focus should always be on how to add value to the client. Do this, and they’ll often return the favor. Think about this for a minute. When you’re the customer, don’t you feel the same way? You’re not really interested in the salesperson’s problems, are you? Your customer is no different. They are not concerned with your problems, only their own.

If you start forcing the customer to buy because you need the money, you’ll lose both the customer and your money. The solution is to get your attention off you and put it on them.

And, don’t think customers can’t sense it when you’re thinking only about your pay-check. They can and they do. And the more attention you have on yourself, the harder it will be to seal the deal. Get used to it or