How can we improve our closing and selling? One way is to become slightly less detached from selling which has remarkable results. Let me explain how.
I was at the football stadium last month having lunch in a rather pleasant restaurant. It was brand spanking new and the food, décor, surroundings appeared to be sumptuous. I was looking forward to lunch. Talk about aloof, the waitress might have well been an android, she was so detached to the process of serving myself and my colleagues, I thought she was talking to someone else.
We all meet people like this in customer service positions and to comment further is another article altogether. Personally I think you just need to employ nice people who just can’t help being…well nice.
It would have been a more enjoyable experience if she had been more attached to our needs, shown some good communication skills and perhaps a little smile. Maybe that was asking too much.
But I want to make another point though.
In sales we find ourselves sweeping from detachment to attachment. Our challenge is to remain detached from emotions but attached enough to connect and do the sale. The worst case scenario is to worry too much if customer says “no” – and not to take offence which many do.
If you put £1,000 of your monthly salary onto the favourite horse on the 3.15 at Kempton Park, then you’d be too attached to the race and would be desperate to win it. The prospect of not paying your mortgage would scare you.
However, if you just found the £1,000 and bet on the same horse, yes there would be emotions hanging on the race, but if the horse didn’t come in, then your world wouldn’t collapse around you.
The same in sales, we need to detach ourselves from the implications of not getting the deal. If you do this, mentally you feel free from the shackles, the stress, the worry of not achieving the sale.
On bank counters I often see this in action. Many cashiers are so worried to ask me questions to discover my needs and recommend I take out their new credit card…in case I say “no”…many don’t even ask or do so in such an apologetic manner.
The same goes for making calls to companies, the customer service people at the other end are being very nice and going through motions and processes – but they won’t close as they’re often too worried about upsetting the customer. And that’s true.
The secret is to detach yourself enough to remove the worry that closing is not upsetting someone but doing our job.
Don’t detach yourself like my waitress friend earlier but enough to be able to probe for needs and then close on these. Yes, back off when you feel you’ve become an irritation but no Mystery Shopper exercise has ever reported back that staff irritate customers and are too pushy. People who are too pushy are attached and desperate – don’t go there.
So to be successful, natural, relaxed and persevere with a close…you must be detached, not aloof. Comfortable and connected but not desperate, believe in yourself, your role and abilities and have a duty of care to all customers that they need serving using the products and services that we provide.
And not a selling skill involved as it’s all in the head. It’s your constant battle with the Inner Game.
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