Summary of The Secrets of Closing the Sale
by Zig Ziglar
Sell with integrity, which means doing whatever is in the prospect’s best interest. Not yours. The tools of sales, like listening, empathy and persuasion, can be used positively or negatively. Unethical salespeople fail in the long term.
Compete not on price but on customer experience. One car dealership in the US sells $250m of cars every year. They have 250 loaner cars for customers to use. When the time comes to service a car, you don’t need to drop your car off at the dealership; they turn up at your house. With a loaner car, so that you’re not left without a car even for a day. The car dealership offers their own emergency breakdown service — a technician will fix your car, repair a flat tyre or bring you fuel. As a result of going above and beyond what’s expected for a car dealership, each salesperson sells double the cars as is the norm in the industry, and that too luxury cars. So, don’t compete on price. Think from the customer’s point of view on how you can offer a better customer experience, not just customer service.
Sales consists of the following steps:
Prospect
Understand their needs
Help them see that your product addresses those needs
Ask for the sale
Step 1: Prospecting
Prospecting means outbound (you contact people) not just closing inbound leads who contact you. We don’t like to prospect, but we must, if we are to succeed.
84% of salespeople hesitate to pick up the phone and call. These make $40K, while those who don’t make $200K. Ironically, the call-reluctant people had invested more time and money in learning what to do; they just couldn’t bring themselves to apply their knowledge. Feeling anxiety before a sales call is a natural reaction to a high-skates situation1. So it’s not about not having anxiety; it’s about overcoming it.
When contacting someone on LinkedIn, email or any other medium, show them that you did your homework about their company.
Step 2: Understand their needs
When talking to a prospect, first understand their needs. The author went to buy a tyre, and the mechanic told him the wheels are misaligned and we need to fix that, or the new tyres will wear out, too. This is an example of discovering and solving the customer’s unstated need. But don’t create needs — that’s manipulation, not ethical selling.
When you ask a question, remain silent. Give them time to think. Don’t fill the gap with an answer. Don’t try to use your insight to move the conversation forward. Salespeople don’t talk themselves into a sale; they listen themselves into a sale. People are not that interested in hearing salespeople talk, anyway.
Step 3: Help them see that your product addresses those needs
As you understand your prospect’s problems, a light may go on in your head as to how your product solves those problems. That’s good, because it means there’s a fit. But it’s not enough — the light must go on in their head, too. You need to show them how your product solves their problems. If they say they want a car that keeps their family safe, it’s not enough to point out that your car has airbags (feature); you need to map it to the benefit (keeping the family safe). People buy benefits, not the product itself.
Step 4: Ask for the sale
Some people understand the prospect’s needs, understand which product they offer addresses those needs, helps the prospect see that the product addresses the needs but stop short of explicitly asking for the sale.
If you ask and they say no, it’s not the end of the game. People often say no based on the information they have, and more information can change their mind.
60% of all sales are made after the first failed closing attempt. But many salespeople give up after the first no, or don’t even ask for the sale. Only 6% persist, and those 6% get 60% of the sales.
People buy when there’s both logic and emotion. The logic convinces them that it’s the right choice, and the emotion compels them to move and close the deal.
Emotions spread from person to person — if you’re excited, they’ll sense it. If you’re dejected because your earlier prospects didn’t work out, they’ll sense that, too.
When you’re in a group, add value to the group, rather than having a “What’s in it for me?” attitude.
In fact, you’re not feeling anxious, your chance of closing the sale reduces.