If you make your living by selling, this may be the most important piece of information you read this year.

Yesterday I mentioned how if you’re selling results, solutions, and end benefits — instead of “all the things you do” — your customers will hear you loud and clear and they’ll want what you’re offering.

But what about “closing” the deal?  For many people, closing is one of the toughest things to do, and in print, it’s even harder to close than in person.

So let me give you some insight here, because a lot of your closing skills has to do with how you look at closing, to begin with.

First, in order to understand where I’m going with this, let’s take a look at “closing,” away from your business.  Let’s look at some other types of closing, in real-life scenarios.

For instance, let’s say a man’s out on a date with a woman he’s very attracted to.  It can even be his wife, if you want.  Anyway, chances are outstanding, from the time he sits down at the dinner table to the time he looks over at the waiter and says, “Check, please…” for the lion’s share of that time, this fellow’s going to be thinking about one thing, and one thing only: having sex with that woman.

In fact, in many situations, it won’t just be the lion’s share of the time, it may be almost 100% of the time.

If you’re a woman, I realize hearing this might come as a shock to you, but trust me, as sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west… this too, is 100% accurate.

See, for the guy, having relations is akin to “closing the deal,” as it relates to this dinner.  And rest assured, this absolutely does NOT mean this guy’s a bad person.  He can be a very loving husband or boyfriend who’s an incredibly supportive partner.  That’s just the way it is, for guys.  Frankly, it’s why women are more complex and smarter.

But don’t get all caught up in the morality of things here.  I want you to understand how to close a deal, so stay with me on this.

O.K.?

Good.

Now let’s take another, completely different situation.  An attentive 11th grade student is sitting in his biology class, and the teacher wants to get him to do some homework that evening, so he’ll be prepared for his upcoming quiz the following day.

In this situation, getting the student to do his homework, is the teachers “close.”

Right?

So here we are, with two completely different situations, two completely different “closes.”

And now let me explain where I’m going with all this stuff.

Appreciate there’s no way the guy out on the date is going to get lucky by rambling on about nothing all night long, and then right after dessert comes, he suddenly turns around to his beautiful date and says:

“Honey… but wait, there’s more!  If you act right now, you’ll get to make hot monkey love with me in exactly forty-five minutes.  And… because we’ve had such a wonderful time together, I PROMISE to last more than 11 seconds tonight.  But… like I said, you MUST act right now to get in on this deal!”

Similarly, there’s no way the biology teacher is going to get ANYONE to do any homework, if she walks into class and says, “Students, for the next 45 minutes I’m going to lecture you on Darwin’s theory.  Most of the material we will be learning is completely irrelevant and I want you to know, you probably won’t ever even think about even one thing I say in today’s class, ever again.  Then, tonight I want you to read 75 pages of related text in your biology textbook.  This, too, is irrelevant.”

Can you see where I’m going with this?

Are you starting to understand why people have such a big problem with closing?

You see, good sales closings and good sales closes don’t stand alone.  They’re very intertwined with your entire sales pitch.  In fact, good sales closing is based on a few specific things:

First, it’s based on consent.  I don’t care how good a sales person you are, you’re not going to get anyone to do anything they don’t WANT to do.  In case you haven’t noticed, people are stubborn, and they’re REALLY stubborn when it comes to their money.  So if closing — on anything, doesn’t matter what you’re selling — is more important to you than it is to your prospect… forget it, you’re done.  No dice, and no deal.

Second, closing isn’t a mutually exclusive thing you do once and get it over with, like a vasectomy, or… like visiting your mother-in-law.

A good closer doesn’t wait until the end of the deal to close.  In fact, a good closer is closing throughout his sales pitch, and he’s doing it in such a way his prospect doesn’t even know he’s being closed.  And that’s because a good closer genuinely cares about what he’s doing, and he cares that his buyers are getting value.  So he closes by focusing on the value and the pride of ownership in his work — not, “getting the money.”

And lastly, a good close is set up right from the get-go, with lots of planning and forethought involved.

Tomorrow I’ll show you how to actually do each of these things in print.  And don’t worry, it’s a LOT easier than you think.

What’s hard is NOT using these strategies and doing what you’re doing now.  When you do it the way you’re doing it now, you get the same results the guy who was out on the date gets… or, the results the gruff teacher gets — you wind up very frustrated and absolutely nothing goes your way.

I’ll show you tomorrow, exactly what I mean.

Now go sell something, Craig Garber

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