Closing is the most important skill in closing. Don’t get me wrong prospecting, the actually sale process, and everything else are important and play their part but the close is the only time that all you work counts for anything. Do everything perfect but fail the close and nothing is going to matter. Suck at every part of sales but be great at the close and well you won’t be a millionaire but you’ll still be better off than someone who is great at every other part but sucks at the close. It’s that important.
Closing is a skill separate from selling and takes time to build up. Having a good attitude and being ballsy is always a good asset but without good closing skills to back these up they aren’t going to count for much. Just like you can good attitude and aggressive you way to winning a boxing match against a trained opponent. Only by repetition of your punches and footwork combined with a dedicated training schedule can you hope to do that. Closing skills take time to develop and require that you drill them and drill them often.
Closing Is A Skill
If you wanted to be a boxer worth a damn you’d have a training schedule set out that you’d follow. You would spend so much time on the heavy bag, speed bag, sparring, shadow boxing, road work, and everything else. You’d never expect to learn how to throw one punch and then think “Alright I’m good” you’d throw your core punches hundreds of times within the first couple of weeks and then keep doing it. Because you’d know that for your punches to do any damage in the ring they’d have to be second nature to you. You would do them so much that they become a part of you.
It’s the same with closing. If you hope the make the big bucks in sales then you have to become a beast at closing. And the only way to do this is to go through your closes so damn much that they become second nature to you. They should be a part of you and be a part of your subconscious mind. You shouldn’t have to think when using them they should just come naturally. That way when objections come up during the negotiations (and they always do) you will already know how to handle them and take the sales process where you want it to go.
Repetition Is The Mother Of Learning
When I was majoring in education (biggest waste of time and money in my life) there were many theories usually proposed by half-baked Marxists about how to teach. There was a big push to get away from things that could be measured and especially from anything resembling education before the 1920’s. It’s all bullshit. There never has been and never will be a replacement for repetition as far as learning is concerned. For deep learning, that sticks for life repetition cannot be beat. No cutesy diagram or whatever else they’re doing now is going to replace this.
If you want to have a good hook you throw ten’s of thousands of good hooks. If you want to be a stone cold killer in closing then you practice every close hundreds of times (and then keep going). If you want to write sales letters that generate you tons of money, then you write out the greatest sales letters by hand. As far as learning is concerned the old school is the best school. You can’t get around hard work and there is no replacement for it. Especially in skills like boxing and closing.
How To Drill
The first thing I would do is go out and get you a copy of Grant Cardone’s The Closer’s Survival Guide in it are 120 or something plus closes in it. He also has an audio program that I would recommend or just record yourself saying the closes. Now here is what you are going to do. You are going to drill the closes in two ways and then have them repeated in one. Alright so first thing’s first read the book cover to cover. Plenty of good stuff in there and well worth it.
Next you are going to get out a notebook and begin writing out each lose three times. Each and every close. If you think this is too much then you don’t have what it takes to be a great closer. In addition to this you are going to say each close out loud three times. Visualize yourself with a customer and they are telling you the objection. Continue doing this until you have these on such a deep level you could close a deal in your sleep. Then in addition to this I would listen to the entire audio book at least once a week. It’s only five or so hours long so it shouldn’t be that hard (or listen to your own recording of the closes, just hear them all once a week).
Summary
Selling is the number one skill to get you what you want in life monetarily and of the entire sales process, closing is by far the most important skill. Without the close no money is transferred and nothing gets done. Without the close no part of selling matters. Without the close you will remain broke and not get what you want in life. Without the close nothing else matters. Drill the closes until you could recite them in your sleep and you won’t have to worry about money again (assuming you have at least a basic knowledge of the rest of the selling process).
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-Charles Sledge
