Close Sales Like a Champion
In the twenty years since ReminderMedia opened its doors, our team has onboarded and coached over a thousand sales professionals.
Many have been absolutely stellar salespeople—the kind who consistently lead shout-out boards and blow through their monthly quotas. But what makes these talented individuals so capable of navigating any sales situation with the same ease of holding a simple, natural conversation? Why do they seem born to sell?
All top closers possess seven key qualities that separate them from their peers. If you’re a sales professional eager to polish your skills, foster each one to enhance every client interaction and virtually guarantee more successful sales.
Confidence
One of the most impactful skills in a salesperson’s arsenal is confidence. Confident people don’t just believe in themselves—they inspire others to believe in them too. After all, your role is to earn prospects’ trust that your organization sells the best accounting software or can secure the best rates on life insurance. Project confidence, and you’ll consistently assure leads that they are in good hands. Self-confidence may seem like something you’re born with, but it’s not; it’s a muscle you can work until you see results. I’ve found that facing my fears has been a tremendous way to do this. Are you nervous about promoting your product at a conference or trade show in front of a large audience? Are you hesitant to strike up networking conversations with strangers? Challenge yourself to take these risks, and retry them if you fail. When you make a habit of overcoming fear, your confidence will grow.
Focus
You can’t find success as a seller without knowing that in each interaction with a lead, even your first greeting, your final goal is always the close. That means the purpose behind every bit of conversation, every touchpoint, and every visual aid or demonstration is to guide a customer from the front door to the cash register, either literally or figuratively.
If you want to stay motivated and focused on this goal, try to establish your “why”—what inspires you to get up each morning and work hard to succeed. It could be your family life, some long-term financial plan, or even the rush of hustling to close deals and gain recognition on those leaderboards. When you know what’s fueling you to pick up the phone every day and call leads, you can enter each client interaction with the laser focus to close deals and propel yourself to succeed.
Persuasiveness
This is the keen ability to change people’s minds. Some leads may approach you because they saw an advertisement for your product and are confident that it’s right for them. In these instances, your role is to offer excellent customer service as they convert and maybe even convince them to upgrade their purchase. But in other cases, you may be dealing with a customer who has serious objections. Maybe they’re on a tight budget, think your product is a poor fit for them, or haven’t heard of your company at all. As a result, they might not feel the urgency to act anytime soon, especially if they don’t have a reason to trust you yet. A persuasive salesperson can guide a lead past any objections and ultimately close those deals.
So what does persuasive speech look like? Successful closers use active, engaging language and storytelling to mine the emotion behind a product or service. Take real estate, for example. People don’t just want to buy a house; they want to buy the lifestyle a house can provide them. Persuasive sellers know how to connect with leads on a deeper level, appeal to their emotional demands, and ultimately convince them they offer the solution they’ve been needing.
Preparedness
Do you think you’ve seen everything a customer could throw at you? Think again. There are more unique objections, refusals, and rebuttals than you could ever dream of. However, if you stay prepared, you can pitch yourself to prospects with confidence and ease.
Every time you communicate with a lead, keep your sales playbook handy. Pull it up when working at your computer, and save a copy on your smartphone for when you converse with prospects outside the office. This resource can be a lifesaver when leads have specific questions about pricing, your company’s history, or your success rates.
However, you should also be able to recite key details about your company and what you sell off the top of your head to ensure a more natural discussion. And, just as importantly, you’ll need to get comfortable going off script to adapt to shifts in the conversation. When you enter a sale prepared for anything, you can confidently offer the value proposition behind your product, address objections, and then request the close.
Attentiveness
On my sales-and-marketing podcast, Stay Paid, I spoke with ultrasuccessful insurance broker David Price, who rakes in millions of dollars in deals every single year. Price said that when he builds up his sales team, he seeks agents who “are coachable, have a positive attitude, and have grit.” In other words, he needs salespeople who pay attention. Good salespeople are eager to learn from moreexperienced peers and have the right attitude to continuously improve their own techniques. They reflect on what works and what doesn’t and adjust their closing tactics in pursuit of perfection.
Attentiveness is an even more valuable trait when holding one-onone conversations with prospects. Great closers listen to leads carefully, make the effort to understand their needs, and then tailor their pitch to offer specific solutions to their demands. To exude attentiveness, use a prospect’s name when you speak to them, be courteous, and adjust to their communication style. And when you’re face-toface, look them in the eye and smile at them. Doing so establishes a rapport and builds trust so they feel comfort
Persistence
Objections may seem like a salesperson’s worst adversaries, but skilled closers know how to anticipate them and handle them effectively. They’re able to address a prospect’s concerns without being offensive, pushy, or aggressive and can also take a “no” to the chin without giving up. A lead may refuse their services now, but what about tomorrow? What about the third, fourth, or fifth time they reach out? Fortune is in the follow-up—the most successful closers are the ones who continue to cultivate relationships with leads until they eventually agree to a deal.
What if you face outright refusal and a prospect denies any future contact? Don’t take it to heart. Even when a lead “dies,” strong closers stay persistent. They stop, take a breath, and pick up the phone again—because the next client might say yes.
Experience
When it comes down to it, frequency is what truly creates greatness. A salesperson can start their career thinking they’re the Michael Jordan of sales, but raw talent can only get them so far. In business, just about every skill, from accurate bookkeeping to attractive advertising, requires practice. The top dogs in sales have years of it under their belts, taking the other traits and refining them into proven selling techniques that almost no one could say no to.
There’s no secret sauce here—the only way to gain experience is to position yourself in front of prospects as often as possible. As you continue to practice and refine the art of closing sales, you can develop every characteristic on this list and see a quantifiable uptick in your closing rates.
TAKE ACTION:
Cultivate these seven qualities in your sales to convert more prospect interactions into closed deals.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Luke Acree is an authority on leadership, a lead-generation specialist, and a referral expert who has helped more than 100,000 entrepreneurs and small businesses grow their companies. He hosts Stay Paid, a sales and marketing podcast, and has been featured in Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Foundr.com.