Getting sales appointments is one thing, but knowing how to effectively close a deal with a qualified prospect is a whole other beast. Luckily, we have all the industry-leading insight to help you pique and retain interest—and we want to give you what we’ve seen working in our sales efforts.
Learn How to Perfect Your Tone
The role of the sales or account executive is to make the prospect feel like they’re having a normal conversation with a friend or colleague. While you may ask the best discovery questions in the world, if you come across as a sales rep that’s just looking to secure another sale, you’ll lose every time.
This is what makes perfecting your tone such an important closing technique. If you want to get more deals, you need to sound relaxed, natural, and excited (if excitability happens to be your style). Alternatively, you can mirror the other person’s tone to make them feel comfortable and earn their trust. If either approach succeeds, the prospect will relate more with the sales or account executive, improving the chances of them signing on on the dotted line.
Don’t Shy Away From Pricing Talk
Our research suggests about only 20% of sales people want to discuss price on the first sales call, compared to nearly 60% of buyers.
As sellers, we must match what the buyer wants—and the reason is simple. In today’s world, prospects can get almost all the information they need to know about your product or service themselves. However, they can rarely learn pricing without talking to an already existing customer, or finding it on communication forums if they’re lucky.
Many sales and account executives shy away from sharing this during the first call, and fail to convert opportunities into customers as a result. Even if you can’t give them an exact price, it’s important that you at least give them a range so they have something to build their decision off of.
While you may not want to start the conversation off with pricing details, it’s important that you bring it up about three quarters into the sales pitch of the initial phone call. No matter what, don’t get off the first sales call without giving them a ballpark.
Master the Takeaway Close
Unfortunately, many prospects no-show second phone calls. More often than not, it’s because they haven’t mastered the “takeaway close” during the initial conversation.
A takeaway close is when sales and account executives make a statement that “takes away” the deal from the prospect. While this may have been used in a sleazy way in the past, it’s important to be cautious of the approach you take. A sales rep armed with this technique can cut through the prospect’s facade and learn if they’re actually genuinely interested in the products or services offered to them.
Here’s an example our sales execs have used in the past:
“Maybe I am off here, but I am getting the sense that you’re not that interested in this, or perhaps it wasn’t what you were expecting. If I’m wrong, let me know, but if not, let’s table this for 12 to 18 months and circle back to see where you’re at.”
After the sales exec makes the takeaway close, it’s essential that they don’t respond until the prospect does. If the feedback is positive, then great! You have a genuinely interested buyer! If they’re still hesitant and respond negatively, the sales exec should respond, “Can you tell me why?” This allows them to learn more about the prospect and what they may be looking for regarding a product or service provider.
When it comes down to it, when sales and account execs use and master the takeaway close, they have the opportunity to:
- Get more prospects to show up for the second call
- Increase sales forecast accuracy
- Understand which deals they should spend more time on
- Boost sales close rates
Always Add a Second Voice
Research from Gong suggests that businesses can increase win rates by over 250% by adding a second voice to sales calls. But what does that mean?
Adding a second voice to a sales call incorporates more people into the conversation. An additional perspective can offer a number of incredible benefits:
- Another set of eyes
- Another conversational style
- Questions that the other person didn’t think to ask
Are you unsure who your second voice should be? The position is often fulfilled by the sales leaders from your organization—VPs, revenue officers, other C-level execs—because the prospect will be more likely to relate with them and trust their insights.
At Abstrakt Marketing Group, we sell $6M worth of ARR each month, and we firmly believe this is because our sales leaders (including our CRO) are on every sales meeting with prospects. By adding a second voice, you have the opportunity to further engage conversations with prospects
Key Takeaways
While there are many crucial closing techniques that sales and account execs should follow, these four tips have provided us with the most impact on accelerating our close rates. By implementing each of our strategies, you have the opportunity to generate more interest and keep the prospects engaged through every phone call.
Our sales and account executives follow these best practices, along with so many other industry-leading techniques. However, we couldn’t secure these sales meetings with qualified prospects without a team of highly qualified sales development reps who have the expertise to find and nurture relationships with verified decision-makers.
If you need a team of SDRs to set you up with high-quality sales opportunities, contact the lead generation experts at Abstrakt for a helping hand!
