Weekly Sales Tips: When to Ask for the Sale

Has anyone ever told you the right to ask for the sale must be earned? I couldn’t possibly disagree more.

Here’s a question I get from time to time. When do I ask for the sale? What what’s the best possible time to ask for the sale? I’m going to look at this from two different perspectives. We’ll start out a little bit more technical and then we’ll look at it more instinctively.

On the technical side, if you’re going to ask for this sale, you have to ask the question, when is the buyer ready to buy? There are three things that need to be present for your buyer to be able to make a purchase decision.

Establish Trust

In the absence of trust, it becomes very difficult for the customer to make any decision at all. That means trusting you, trusting your organization, trusting other people in the company, trusting in the value. Trust must be established.

Needs Met

I know it seems obvious, but it’s important that we understand what those needs are in the first place and why the solution we offer is better than anyone else’s as it pertains to their specific situation.

Urgency Confirmed

It doesn’t matter if they trust us. It doesn’t matter if we have what they’re looking for? If there’s no urgency on their side to move forward, then we’re going to get stuck. The greatest form of urgency ties back to the need, because the greater the dissatisfaction the higher the urgency.

I’ve said it many times. The single greatest predictor of urgency is dissatisfaction. What is wrong in that customer’s life that needs to be fixed now?

Those are three things that need to be present and you can use that as something of a checklist as you’re thinking about your own presentation. How effective are you in making certain that those three elements are clear in the buyer’s mind?

That’s the technical side, but then you have to look at the intuitive side. I’m going to tell you that if you’ve been in sales for any period of time, you know this moment. There’s just a little pause when a voice in your head says, “This is a good time to ask for the sale.” I’m going to tell you right now what happens right then is critical, because the longer you wait to respond to the voice, the more you give room for other voices to jump into your head.

What are those other voices going to say? They say things like, don’t do it. You don’t want to destroy the relationship. It’s not too late. You can still save yourself. You come up with all kinds of reasons why you should not ask for the sale. But the one that drives me totally nuts is when I ask myself the question, “Have I earned the right?” Remember I started out by saying I couldn’t possibly disagree more that you must earn the right to ask for the sale. Here’s why.

We’ve heard it many times. I’m going to tell you right now, I don’t know who first came up with that, but I’d like to take them behind the woodshed and beat the snot out of them because that’s a dangerous qualifier to put in your brain just at the time when your customer needs you to ask for the sale.

Here’s the paradigm that I want you to pay attention to and keep in your head. When the voice says this is a good time to ask for the sale here is what you need to understand. The voice isn’t speaking to you. It’s speaking on behalf of the customer.

When that voice is telling you it’s a good time to ask for the sale it means the customer needs you to ask for the sale. There’s no mystery here. You’ve already found the right product. You’ve talked about terms and prices and your company reputation and everything else. You like them and they like you. Do you think it’ll be a big surprise at this moment if you ask them to buy?

You have to get outside of your own head and take the qualifiers away. When the voice speaks, act. That’s your mantra. When the voice tells you to ask for the sale, ask for the sale. That will always be the right time.

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Until next time, learn more to earn more.