What if I told you that you could close more sales if you didn’t try to close the sale? Does that go against everything you’ve been taught about negotiation? That’s what I thought too when expert negotiator Jim Camp first brought this idea to my attention.
I asked Jim if our marketing consultants should try to close the deal with their clients when they do their Opportunity Analysis. Jim reminded me of the Oxford Dictionary definition of negotiation:
“The effort to reach an agreement between two or more parties with all parties having the right of veto.”
If a consultant conducts an Opportunity Analysis with the mindset that they are going to use some tactics to close the prospect off of your marketing services, then they have violated the definition above by attempting to remove the veto.
By using closing tactics and not focusing on whether or not the service is right for the prospect, you are trying to take away their right to say no to your offer. In any business transaction, tactics that try to fool someone will never work in the long run.
Instead, your goal should not be to close the customer, but to find out as much as you can about the customer’s needs to see if you can fill that need. You want to give them a chance to tell you no.
Why give them a chance to say no?
Your goal is not to get them to say no. Your goal is to get them to say yes. But, you should only want this “yes” as a result of you being the best solution to their problem.
Therefore, finding out what their needs are, and then showing how the best solution to that problem can be, is the right way to negotiate a closing. Make you and your solution irresistible to the prospect.
You can only do this by laying everything out for them and saying, “This is what I understand your challenges to be, and this is how I can help you overcome those challenges.”
That happens by spending as much time as possible in the client’s world and not in their world.
If you can correctly identify your challenges and can actually help overcome those challenges, the transaction will close on its own. You’ve already addressed the prospect’s needs and given them the opportunity to say no.
If you have explained things well, they have no reason to say no. You have closed the deal.