When you can close the sale

Many sales people fail to get the order simply because they do not ask for it. It's true! It's almost as if they expect to be shot when they say to the prospect "Can I have the order?" - or similar words.

It makes it a lot easier if you can tell at what point in the sales meeting you are likely to get a 'YES!' when you ask for the order. And there are several ways of detecting this point.

We can do this by asking a 'test close' question, one which is aimed at finding out the state of the prospect's mind - how s/he feels about our product or service so far. Some examples are:

1. "How do you feel about that?"
2. "Is there anything else you'd like to ask me?"
3. "Do you have a date in mind?"
4. "Do you prefer the green one or the blue one?"

Look out also for 'buying signals', indicating that the prospect is waiting for you to ask for the order.

1. Physical body language signals, such as leaning towards you, agrees with you by nodding, relaxes (especially if s/he opens the hands),
2. Verbal signals, questions such as "Can you deliver next week", "When would you be able to start?", "Do you have them in a larger size?"

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