As we edge closer to the end of the quarter/financial year, the pressure to close deals is almost certainly increasing. The funny thing about being under pressure to close deals, is that our customers and prospects often sense our growing desperation. When we project our sense of urgency onto our customers, a number of different things can occur:
- Sometimes they use this knowledge to drive a better deal, leveraging end of quarter or end of year, to demand a deeper discount
- Sometimes they are put-off by our desperation and it raises questions in their minds about whether we’re the right product or service to meet their needs
- Sometimes they go completely quiet, leaving us in no-mans land, as we struggle for an update or next step in the buying process.
In this video I recently recorded with social selling guru Tony Hughes, we explore the subtle difference between closing a deal versus earning the right to move to the next step.
My top tips as you enter the end of quarter/year madness:
- Slow down, get very detail oriented in terms of understanding and communicating with your prospects. Buyers remorse in the B2B world can often happen before the contract is signed, so don’t allow anything to trip you up in the home stretch, understand the steps to closure and over-communicate in this final phase of the sales process.
- Go back to your early conversations with your prospect to ensure what you are about to sell them delivers on their specific needs and success criteria. The more closely you can connect into what they constitute as value or success, the greater your chances of closing the deal. Remember: Value is in the eye of the beholder.
- Remember that great negotiators trade the wants and needs of their customers, for their own wants and needs. Now is not the time for defaulting to discount, now is the time to work out exactly what your customer needs to say yes and then trade with them, for what you need, ensuring a win/win outcome on both sides.
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