In the marketing chapter, I briefly covered that you need to create a sense of urgency in your message. In marketing, you create a sense of urgency to respond. In sales, you also need to create a sense of urgency to close.
The reason is that the level of desire can wane after the presentation is over. The emotion dissipates. Remember that all sales are made on emotion. Some prospects will not close right away, and understanding the behavior styles and when to close or not will be part of your ongoing training. One technique you can use in those cases is to go ahead and do the paperwork, but put it on hold until a certain date.
It goes like this. “Mr. Prospect, I understand that you want to think about it. At the same time, I know you’ve expressed interest in the special offer, correct?” “What if we do this…let’s go ahead and do the paperwork, and we’ll put a hold on it for you so you will have time to think about it. If you decide not to move forward, we’ll shred the paperwork. How does that sound?”
I have seen this work many times. Your testing will show how many end up cancelling and how many don’t. By the way, you then work on a suitable date (not next month!) and you put a date on the paperwork and ask about processing the payment tomorrow (or whenever it is) if you don’t hear from the prospect. You want to avoid having to track down the person. Put the follow-up responsibility on the prospect. Remember once more: if your product or service benefits the person, there is no harm in working hard to help!
