Closing Approach & Closing Secrets – An Interview With Lahat Tzvi @Lahat_Tfisot

Please, can you tell us about yourself and your professional sales background?

You can imagine what it was like.  I was so anal and process-oriented that I actually created this big schematic of the sales process (you know, what the client would do, what I would do) and I would give it to the client.  That’s how anal I was.  It didn’t always go over well.

Today I am a best-selling author, corporate trainer and executive coach.  I specialize in B2B complex sales – mostly in healthcare.  I see my job as making salespeople, VPs and executives as effective as they can be.

Think about a time when you wanted to accomplish something new.

We all would love to have a coach helping us move forward toward our goal at our own pace.  Someone helping us step-by-step.

Well, our clients are engaging us because they want us to help them make positive change.  They are expecting us to be that coach.  They want us to guide them through each little commitment it takes to achieve their goals.

So, sales is not about persuasion or manipulation.  Sales is leadership.  Sales is coaching.  And most salespeople can do a lot better job of coaching and serving clients than they are doing today.  So my approach, and my challenge to professional salespeople, is to be a better coach.  A better problem-solver.  A better teacher.  And a better leader so we can serve our clients better.

For example, thanks to Alec Baldwin in Glengary Glenross.  Every salesperson knows the ABCs of selling – Always Be Closing.  But the tragic truth is that this has been tested thoroughly and past the first attempt there is a negative correlation between closing attempts and closing success.  The More you attempt to close – the less you’ll actually close.

In the Huthwaite study we even know how much less – it’s 33%.  So, the gut feeling that most of us have not to badger customers is telling you to do the right thing.  And that’s just one of many myths around closing that have been disproven by scientific study.

Yet, what research has borne out is that just asking one commitment question raises the likelihood of closing by 36%.  Sales don’t close themselves.  We do have to make some effort to advance the sale.  They key is to do that in a high-probability, non-confrontational way.  And that’s where the problem is.

Today when people search the internet for ways to close sales they get buried by loads of manipulative techniques born in the previous century.  So why do 50% to 90% of sales encounters end with no attempt to commit?  Because in most cases the person doesn’t feel comfortable with it.

They don’t want to manipulate or pressure the client and they don’t know how to get a commitment without doing that – so, unfortunately, they don’t do anything at all.

It’s important to understand where the customer is in their buying process because knowing that tells us how we can best add value for that customer at this point in time.  For example, if the customer is still defining their problem and determining if it is large enough to do something about, we don’t want to be talking about why our solution is the best solution – because the customer isn’t at the “Evaluate Solutions” stage of their buyer’s journey yet.  Our customer would be better served by helping them quantify the potential impact of their current problem and the possible upside of solving it.

When sellers push, or introduce concepts that are further along than the customer is in their buyer’s journey they come off as pushy.  What makes a client feel “manipulated” can typically be traced back to an attempt to move the sales process along faster than the client is ready for.

Given that our particular solution was a complex, multi-stage sale I had a pretty tough set of criteria to work with.  I mean, how do you get a new sales rep that is unfamiliar with the steps customers go through when investing in a solution to logically advance the sale in a way that doesn’t come off as pressuring or manipulative and at the same time doesn’t risk destroying the new rep’s credibility with the client?  It’s a tall order.

With some careful thinking, I came up with a way.  As time went on we improved up on that model and those are the five variations you see in The Perfect Close.

The time to ask for an advance is when the customer has enough information to do so.  Doing that earlier will cause the customer to feel pressured and damage trust.  My favorite approach is simple.  Create an agenda for the meeting and put an item near the end for “action items” and “next steps.”  When you get to that part of the agenda you simply ask your Perfect Close questions.

If you’ve given any thought to it at all you will very naturally advance your opportunity in 95% of cases.

#1 is that closing is more effective when it isn’t high-pressure or manipulative.  The science behind this is overwhelming.  Using an authentic approach is more effective and makes the experience much more enjoyable for both the salesperson and the client.

#5 is that intent matters more than technique.  This is such a big deal that I devote all of chapter 3 to it in The Perfect Close.  Customers make some very important judgements in the first few seconds of any meeting and these judgements make a huge difference on the outcome of a sale.  Many people are surprised to discover that in selling situations customers weigh intent more heavily than competency.  If your intent is flawed no technique can save you.  But if your intent is good even a flawed technique can win.

#16 (and several in this range) relate directly to The Perfect Close questions.  The secret here is that by asking a timing question customers cannot reject you or your course of action – only the timing of it.  Regardless of the outcome that leaves us on emotionally higher ground and paves the way for the right advance for this client.

So I would coach sale professionals to just get off of what’s in it for you for minute and figure out how to actually help this client.  If you genuinely help this client solve their problem the money will take care of itself so get off of it and focus on actually solving the problem.  Be present and serve this customer.  The reward will take care of itself.

1. Continuous learning.
2. Ruthless time management.
3. And a strong Bias for action.

With these three skillsets, you will be continuously learning, improving and operationalizing what you have learned in a virtuous cycle.  These are meta-skills for ongoing success.

Helping a customer move towards their goal is an act of service.  It shouldn’t be difficult or stressful at all.  It should be easy.  The mistake that a huge number of salespeople make is going into any opportunity thinking about what’s in it for them rather than what’s in it for the customer.

This inadvertently triggers a whole bunch of undesirable things and causes the buying and selling process to become dysfunctional.

Getting your head in the right place will make the whole process much more enjoyable for both you and your customer.  And it will make you more successful as well.