What are the two closing techniques used when a salesperson believes a buyer is about ready to make a purchase?

Skip to content

There’s no one way to close a deal, but these tips will help you create a winning game plan.

How do you improve at closing?

Okay, so you know a lot of the proven techniques. How do you build on this foundation and get better at sales closing? Here are a few pointers to keep top of mind when you’re trying to reel in the deal.

Selling shouldn’t feel like selling. It should feel like helping, because that’s ultimately what you’re doing. The consultative approach will always beat the transactional approach, especially in B2B selling. Use discovery calls and your own research to know the customer inside and out. What are their pain points? How does your solution address them? Are they an ideal fit for your solution? This personalized approach builds trust, and at the end of the day, successful selling is all about relationships.

Preparation is half the battle. Your prospect will naturally have objections about why this isn’t the right time for them to buy. A very common one is pricing. What’s the competitive advantage of your tool that offsets the cost? Be ready to go with solid answers to whatever pushback they might have. This makes you look more knowledgeable about the prospect and the product.

Are you talking to the right person? If not, how do you get to the right person? So much of sales closing requires getting the correct people in the room who have the power to call shots. You’ll want to suss this out earlier on in the sales process when you’re qualifying leads. Don’t spend too much time communicating the value of your tool to the marketing manager if the person holding the purse strings is the vice president of marketing.

Sales representatives don’t close every single opportunity in their pipeline. That means a lot of the prospects that come your way may not become customers. It’s also possible a small percentage of leads could bring in a lot of your revenue, which means you don’t have to pursue those unlikely to close. Knowing when to move on is critical. Don’t dwell on prospects that have shown no interest in closing. You’ll lose sight of more promising opportunities.

“Every deal, whether it’s a win or loss, has something you can learn from. It’s an opportunity to reflect on how you can evolve both in process and strategy,” said Kelly Myers, an account executive at Salesforce who specializes on enterprise-level deals.

Know you’re part of a team.

Combined expertise will outweigh one person’s expertise every time. When you’re facing hurdles, lean on your collaborative tools like Slack to connect with your fellow reps or your sales managers in real time so you can decide your next move as a team. We recommend even creating deal-specific channels in Slack that can act as a repository of knowledge and support for high-level opportunities.

“You're going to win 10 times more as a team than you are as an individual,” said Myers. “There will be a lot of times where you don’t have the answers, and that’s okay. It’s important to know you have a team that will do everything in their power to help you deliver what the customer needs.”

Level up your selling and grow revenue with Sales Cloud plus Slack.

What sales closing mistakes should you avoid?

Experience can be the best teacher when it comes to knowing what not to do. Here are common pitfalls that the smartest salespeople have learned to overcome.

Going in for the hard close.

Pressure selling is out, empathy selling is in. When you come out early with an ask for the sale and then keep aggressively asking before you’ve even truly established your product’s value, it shows little consideration for the buyer. It makes it appear as though you're speeding through the sale to meet your quota, and it’s off-putting. After all, selling isn’t about you, it’s about them.

“I don't think the hard sale has any place in today's market. I always tell people sales is not about ‘selling’ or convincing anybody of anything. It's about helping people solve problems or achieve goals,” said John Barrows, the CEO of JB Sales, a sales training firm.

An important thing to remember when closing? Ask for the sale. Inertia can be a difficult thing to overcome when working with prospects. Many waffle when faced with multiple vendors and put off making a final purchase decision. If you tell them to “take some time to think about it and circle back,” you may never hear from that person again. After you’ve effectively communicated why your product is a fit and they’ve reciprocated interest, sometimes it’s powerful to simply ask if they’re ready to buy. If they balk, that’s your cue to ask more questions about their needs.

How do you know when it’s the right time to close? How do you avoid closing too early? Too late? This is a bit of a trick question. There is no singular moment when you go in for the close because, if you’re wise, sales closing is something that happens throughout the sales process. The prospect signing on the dotted line is more of a natural conclusion, not an event.

“Closing should happen at every stage of the sales process. You’re closing for the next steps, you’re closing for meetings. It’s ongoing,” said Barrows.

What's next?

“Always be closing” used to be a common saying in sales. That’s shifted to “Always be connecting.” You should always be studying your prospects and adapting your approach to match their expectations and their needs. Similar to chess, your first moves often determine your final ones. When the rest of the sales process has been strategic and focused, sales closing becomes less of a conquest and more of a collaboration between you and the buyer.