The Lost Art of Closing by Anthony Iannarinov
FOREWORD BY BRENT ADAMSON AND NICHOLAS TOMAN
- Customers fall into endless learning loops, where each piece of additional information raises new questions requiring still more research.
- This is the new “close” in sales. Not closing customers on a sale, but “closing” customers on each of a series of necessary steps designed to prevent a purchase stall.
INTRODUCTION
- If you aren’t willing and able to ask for the commitments you need, you will not succeed in sales.
- Asking for the decision to buy too soon, before the buyer is ready, almost ensures that the salesperson’s ask will be rejected.
- “Always be closing,“ as I practice it, involves securing a series of commitments from a prospective client that lead to the decision to buy.
Chapter 1: A NEW PHILOSOPHY OF COMMITMENT GAINING
- The six key components of the right mindset are confidence, caring, persistence, speaking from the client’s mind, embracing concerns, and realizing it’s not about you.
- If the language you use makes you feel bad about yourself, if it feels tricky or coercive in any way, you’re not speaking from your client’s mind.
- Helping your prospective clients deal with their fears, real or imagined, is how salespeople help their clients change.
Chapter 2: CONTROL THE COMMITMENTS AND CONTROL THE PROCESS
- To move your dream client from dissonance to believing they have a problem worth solving, you have to help them find a compelling reason to change. You control this process by gaining the Commitment to Explore and the Commitment to Change.
- You control the process, but you don’t control the outcome.
- The best advice I can give you for responding to an RFP is to call the purchasing people and push back, telling them all the things in their request that are going to prevent them from achieving the results they are pursuing.
- It is important to control the process and not let the buyer skip commitments.
- You need to go from commitment to commitment, always explaining the value of taking the next step together, always overcoming your prospective client’s fears and concerns, and always working to nudge things forward, even when there is resistance to doing so.
Chapter 3: TRADING VALUE
- What it means to “trade value” is that you promise your prospective client something of equal or greater value in exchange for the commitment you are asking for.
- “I am calling you to schedule a time to share with you the four trends that are going to impact your business over the next twelve to eighteen months, and some ideas about the decisions these trends might require you to take. Even if you never work with us, you’ll ask your team different questions, and you’ll have some ideas about what you need do.”
- “I’d like to come back and explore the root cause of this issue and explore what might be necessary to improve it and what some of your choices might be later. We’ll both have a better idea of what makes sense and what we might do about it together, if anything.”
- Let’s look at the value you trade when asking
for each of the ten commitments
- Time: When you ask your dream client to give you their time, you have to give them equal value in insights and ideas that help them produce better results.
- Exploration: Your dream client’s commitment to explore change requires that you provide them with a deeper understanding of what is at the heart of why they are experiencing dissonance and why they should change.
- Change: The value you trade here is a vision of a better future and how you are going to help your dream client get there.
- Collaboration: The value you exchange for the opportunity to collaborate is that your dream client gets a solution that is tailored to their needs.
- Consensus: You provide value here by helping your dream client create the alignment necessary to prevent them from having their change initiative die a premature death from lack of consensus.
- Investment: You are trading a partner who can help them make the case for a greater investment inside their company and justify the delta between the investment you are asking for and the alternatives
- Review: The value you are trading here is an opportunity to make changes and modifications to what you are building with your prospective client.
- Resolving concerns: You trade the opportunity to have professional help assessing risks, resolving concerns, and addressing fears and the certainty that your dream client’s change initiative will succeed.
- Deciding: The value you trade for the Commitment to Decide is the better future you have promised your dream client.
- Execution: You are going to trade the value of having a partner who is there to help do the heavy lifting in exchange for making the changes necessary to produce better results.
- Your job is to create so much value for your client during each and every interaction that it is all but impossible to say no to the next step.
Chapter 4 THE COMMITMENT FOR TIME
- Deals that are early in the sales process are virtually ignored, even though that’s the time when coaching can make a big difference.
- Don’t ask for time by e-mail. The phone is a far better medium for asking for commitments.
- SIX STEPS TO SECURING THE COMMITMENT FOR TIME
- Step One: Ask Early and Only for Time: “I am calling today to ask you for a twenty-minute meeting to share with you four big ideas that you are going to have to deal with over the next eighteen months. What do you look like Thursday for a twenty-minute executive briefing?” Don’t try to do discovery work during a call to request a commitment for time. The only outcome you should seek during this first interaction is a commitment for time.
- Step Two: Expect and Prepare for a No
- Step Three: Promise Value Without a Pitch: One of the keys to obtaining a meeting now is to offer value to the prospective client with no further obligation, including not having to listen to you pitch your company and your solution.
- Step Four: Ask Again: No matter how terrific your ask for the Commitment for Time may be, you are going to be rejected the first time around, and probably the second as well.
- Step Five: Lower the Commitment Level: Lower the commitment level by asking for just a twenty-minute meeting
- Step Six: Promise Not to Waste Their Time: You might say something like, ”I promise, I only need twenty minutes and I won’t waste one minute of your time.”
- Hi, my name is Anthony Iannarino and I am the business development leader at Transformation, Inc. We help companies improve employee engagement, increase retention, and generate greater results with their existing team. I am calling you to ask you for a twenty-minute meet-and-greet where I can share with you the five trends that are stopping good teams from producing the results they are capable of. Whether or not you ever do business with us, you’ll ask some different questions after you see these trends, and you’ll likely make some different decisions. What do you look like later this week for a twenty-minute executive briefing?
- There are a finite number of refusals out there,
- “I Am Happy with My Current Partner” – I understand you have a provider you are happy with now. Almost everyone I call already has someone providing services similar to ours. I’m not asking you to change anything, including your partner. But I would like to share some ideas with you during a twenty-minute meet-and-greet. Should your situation ever change in the future, you will know me and you’ll know how we think about the big challenges your industry is facing now. In many of the companies that we work with, we act as a supplement for the work that they do.
- “I Don’t Have Time” – Most busy people are booked up at least a week in advance, so asking for time a couple of weeks in the future may make it easier for your prospective client to say yes.
- “Mail Me Some Information” – There’s nothing that I could mail you that would have as much impact as the ideas I can share with you in a twenty-minute conversation.
Chapter 5: THE COMMITMENT TO EXPLORE
- Whenever a prospect begins to engage with a stranger (that’s you in this case), there will always be a certain amount of resistance to discussing the “real “issues.
- If your prospective client already believes that he has a compelling reason to change, he’ll either be working on that change or have already made the change. So walking into his office and assuming he’ll be ready to make some major alterations is a mistake.
- Don’t ever expect a prospective client to tell you why they need to change. Answering the question “Why should I change now?” is your responsibility.
- The value you create for your clients doesn’t come from asking them what’s keeping them up at night. It comes from telling them what should be keeping them up at night.
- Present your view of your client’s business, their threats, their opportunities, and some insight about other choices available to them.
- Can I meet with a few members of your operations team to better understand their needs? After I do that, I’ll report back to you with what I learned and some ideas about what might work for you. Is there someone who can help me understand this challenge at the runway level?”
- If you have trouble getting a second meeting, ask for a do-over. Call your prospective client back and say, “I don’t think I did a good job explaining what we should do next and why you would want to have that meeting. Can I start over?”
- Can you name the four or five trends that are going to cause your prospective clients problems now or in the near future?
- Can you share your experiences helping other people in similar situations with their challenges?
Chapter 6: THE COMMITMENT TO CHANGE
- [Link your solutions to trends representing existential threats to your prospects’ businesses]. Taxi companies, for example, could have created a service like Uber, but they didn’t.
- Are the problems we’ve been discussing the right ones for you and your team to work on right now? Or do you have others that are more pressing?
- If you want to be a trusted advisor, you must value relationships more than transactions.
- The target date is not your date; it’s the client’s date: “We have more work to do, but what’s your best idea of a target date for rollout?”
- Securing the Commitment to Change is one of the things that separates professionals from the pack.
- There are three telling clues that will let you know that you aren’t looking at an opportunity; They are when the commitment process has halted, the client has no compelling reason to change, and the client has no vision of the future.
Chapter 7: THE COMMITMENT TO COLLABORATE
- When the stakeholders you are working with inside your dream client’s accounts have designed the solution with you, their commitment to that solution is stronger.
- If you are going to sell successfully, you are going to have to sell inside your own company as well as you sell outside.
- Try your best to arrange collaborative meetings that involve more stakeholders.
- Your conversations with clients that are centered around “What do we do next?” and “How do we make this even better?” will transform you from vendor or supplier to strategic partner.
Chapter 8: THE COMMITMENT TO BUILD CONSENSUS
- People with titles and roles indicating they are “decision makers “no longer want to take action unilaterally.
- Company leaders want “buy-in “on major decisions — that is, they want assurance from those affected by the decision that they will participate in the change initiative from the start.
- Early in the process, you need to gain the agreement to build a consensus from your prospective client.
Chapter 9: THE COMMITMENT TO INVEST
- [Talk price early.] Even though you may be afraid of losing the opportunity, don’t leave the price conversation until the last minute. Moving it up in the process will increase your odds of winning the deal at a higher price.
- “Our price is going to be a little more than our competitors ’, and it’s going to be a little more than what you are paying now. Can I share with you how investing a little more will ensure that you produce the outcomes you need and lower your overall costs?”
- You are always going to be told your competitor has a lower price. Own up to it immediately by saying, “That’s right. They are always cheaper.”
Chapter 10: THE COMMITMENT TO REVIEW
- You’ll need to ensure that you get a yes when you ask for the Commitment to Decide. How do you do that? You secure the Commitment to Review — that is, to review your proposed solution before it takes its final form.
- Always test your solution to see if it will garner a yes before you ask for a final decision.
- If you can’t get everyone together, ask if you can do the preproposal meetings separately.
- “Of course I’ll provide you with my proposal and investment details, but first I want to make sure it’s completely dialed in and exactly the right solution. Can I show you and your team what we have at this point and get your feedback so I can make changes before we provide you with a final proposal?”
Chapter 11: THE COMMITMENT TO RESOLVE CONCERNS
- The process of buying and selling doesn’t end once you’ve made your presentation. Your prospective client needs you to help them assess their risks, address their concerns, and eliminate their fears.
- If you don’t leave your presentation meeting with a signed contract, assume that your deal is at risk, and ask your prospective client for the Commitment to Resolve Concerns.
Chapter 12: THE COMMITMENT TO DECIDE
- You might say, ”I believe we’ve done everything we’ve needed to do up to this point, and unless you believe we need to do something else, I’d like to ask you for your business. Can we get started?”
- Do not say, “We are in business to make a profit“ or “Let me go back and ask my sales manager if we can do better.”
- Exchanging and reviewing contracts: Gain another Commitment for Time to get together to review and discuss any changes.
- It’s best to ask for the commitment to a start date as early in the process as possible
Chapter 13: THE COMMITMENT TO EXECUTE
Chapter 14: GUIDELINES FOR CLOSING
- Deals stall when you don’t ask for — or obtain — the commitment you need at each stage.
- There is no scenario in which it makes sense for you to wait for your dream client to ask you if they can buy from you.
- An objection is how someone informs you that they have a concern. Instead of focusing on the objection, you have to focus on resolving the concern.
- Confidence comes from knowing that you have the knowledge, skills, ability, and commitment necessary to produce some outcome.
- Always know who has the authority to sign. Even in a consensus sale, someone is “the authority.”
- “Can you share your concerns with me so I can make sure this works for you?”
Chapter 15: TRANSFORMATIONAL CONVERSATIONS AND FEARING THE WRONG DANGERS
- THERE ARE TWO MAJOR REASONS YOUR DREAM CLIENT
refuses to make the commitment you ask them to make:
- The first reason is that they have some fear that prevents them from agreeing to move forward.
- The second is that they don’t believe that making that commitment and taking the next step creates value for them.
Chapter 16: MANAGING COMMITMENTS
- Keep asking your salespeople if they are gaining the necessary commitments to move the opportunity along.
- Conduct pipeline reviews, inspecting the deals through the lens of the ten commitments.
- When you sell, you are trying to create a preference for you, your company, and your solution.
- For the Commitment for Time, ask: “Tell me about the new appointments you have scheduled for next week.”
- For the Commitment to Explore, ask: “What kind of issues resonated with your prospective client?”
- For the Commitment to Change, ask: “Why is this prospect compelled to change and what is driving that?”
- For the Commitment to Collaborate, ask: “What adjustments or changes does the client need us to make for this to work for them?”
- For the Commitment to Build Consensus, ask: “Who is on the buying committee here?”
- For the Commitment to Invest, ask: “Is what we are proposing worth paying more for and why?”
- For the Commitment to Review, ask: “Are they 100 percent confident in this solution?”
- For the Commitment to Resolve Concerns, ask: “What are they concerned about?” And: “What are we going to have to provide them in the way of proof that will
- For the Commitment to Decide, ask: “How are you going to ask for their business?”
- For the Commitment to Execute, ask: “What do we need to change to help our new client get the outcome we promised?”
Chapter 17: IN CLOSING
- The skills of sales have gone through three
major periods [the skills of each generation continue to be required in
successive ones]
- First-generation skills: how to prospect, present, and close
- Second-generation skills: differentiating your offering, diagnosing your client’s needs, and negotiating
- Third generation skills: business acumen, change management, and leadership
- It isn’t enough to know how your solutions solve your clients’ problems. That’s table stakes. You are now required to recognize problems your client doesn’t yet recognize. You must also be able to explain where your client has better results available to them, even before they recognize that this is true.