Having Trouble Closing The Deal? Here's Why

 
Being a successful salesperson is a two-part process. To sell a product, you need to engage your customer and get them emotionally attached to your product. Selling the features of a product is not the same as closing a deal to generate a sale. Closing is arguably the most important part of the sales process, generating income and profit. Here are some reasons you may not be closing.
 

 
You're a poor communicator

Establishing clear, concise, and confident communication with your customer is a key component in the art of successful closing. Address your customer clearly and confidently. Don't falter, hesitate, or ramble and always maintain eye contact. Hubspot recommends paying full attention to your prospective client and practice active listening. When doing business, nothing is more frustrating than getting the impression someone isn't listening to you or fully addressing your wants and needs. Your customers are paying money for goods and services, and deserve your attention.

Being an effective communicator involves strong listening skills and operating well in a reciprocal process of sharing information. If necessary, practice what you want to say to your customer. According to Entrepreneur, you may want to record yourself and play it back to recognize what you're doing well and what areas of your delivery you need to improve.

 
You're not investing in building relationships

Put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Do you want to do business with someone you've built a good rapport and relationship with or someone that you don't really know and merely sees you as a commission check? Every potential customer is a person with interests, hobbies, a family and future goals, which can likely relate to your business, service, or product. Investing your time getting to know your client on a personal level is a critical part of building a relationship with them that will help develop trust and eventually help close a sale.

 
You're not selling a solution

Sometimes it's hard to remember you're not selling a product or service, you're selling a solution to your client's problems, wants, or needs. Forbes even describes it as providing a solution for a customer's "pain point." For instance, your lawn is out of control and you don't have the time to maintain it. Hiring a lawn service solves your problem. How can your product or service solve your client's problem? Better yet, are there multiple problems you can solve for your client? For instance, will your state-of-the-art HVAC system solve your customer's heating and cooling needs, conserve energy and help your client reduce energy bills? The more solutions you can offer a customer, the more reasons they will have to do business with you.

 
You bad mouth your competition

You should never speak negatively about your competitor's products and services. For one thing, you should simply refrain from resorting to these low-blow kinds of tactics. Customers generally see through this, and it can backfire and essentially make you the bad guy in your client's eyes. If you've followed the previous suggestions to communicate clearly, build a relationship with your client and sell solutions, then your customer should be motivated to do business with you, and should want to buy your products and services. You won't need to cut down your competition in an attempt to sway your customer to work with you instead.

 
This article was written by Lori Melton for CBS Small Business Pulse