Have a strategy for ending negotiations

💎 Tim Conner, in his book “91 Mistakes Salespeople Make,” writes: Professional salespeople know very well that reaching the conclusion of a sales negotiation is never accidental or based on luck; rather, we must have a precise strategy for successfully closing a sales negotiation.

🔹 The strategy for closing a sales negotiation is a process we use in all our sales discussions to guide the customer toward making a final decision and purchasing our product.

🔹 This process usually works as follows: after finishing the product presentation, we ask the customer a few short questions that help lead them toward a decision.

🔹 If we are beginner salespeople, we can use these three types of questions to close a sales negotiation:

◽️1. Alternative questions In this strategy, we present several options about our product for the customer to choose from. For example, after presenting a car, we ask: “Do you prefer it in white or in black?”

◽️2. Action questions In this strategy, we ask about the next step the customer should take in the form of a question. For instance, after presenting an industrial raw material, we might ask: “Shall I send you the contract tomorrow, or bring it with me so you can review it?”

◽️3. Direct questions In this strategy, we ask the customer very clearly whether they want to buy the product. For example, after presenting a new refrigerator, we ask: “Would you like me to place your order?”

🔹 These three strategies share a common problem: they still place the customer in a decision‑making position.

🔹 Therefore, if we are experienced and professional salespeople, it is better to design our closing strategy in such a way that we make the decision for the customer and only ask them to confirm it.

🔹 For example, after presenting a car to the customer, instead of asking “Do you prefer it in white or black?” we ask: “I’ll order the black one for you, is that okay?”

🔹 After asking this question, the customer has three choices:

◽️1. The customer accepts the decision we made and agrees with it, in which case we have successfully closed the sales negotiation.

◽️2. The customer does not like the decision we made and changes it. For example, they may say: “No, I prefer the white car.” In this case, we close the negotiation based on the customer’s preference.

◽️3. The customer disagrees with the entire decision we made and does not accept it. In this case, we realize that the customer is not ready to buy, and we should not spend more time and energy on them. Instead, we allow time to pass and approach them again later.

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