What's The Real Cause Of Low Closing Ratios?

By Kent Howell
 

I recently came across a situation where someone I was working with told me that their salespeople were doing a poor job of closing and wanted to implement some training to improve the team's closing skills. It's normal to look at low closing rates as being indicative of a lack of skill in asking for the business. In many cases salespeople don't directly ask for the business because they don't want to hear "no"; and it other instances they may not know how to ask for it in a way that will lead to a "yes" or not know how to properly deal with any resistance they may encounter.

However, I want to look at this from a different perspective. I believe that low closing ratios are often not necessarily the result of poor closing skills, but rather are indicative of a lack of skills in questioning skills and presentation skills, with the questioning skills being the more significant culprit.

Why do I believe this? Let's look at what I think is the most essential element in selling, that is providing a solution to a prospect's challenges and problems (which fall primarily into two categories - reducing costs and increasing revenue). If the prospect doesn't see or believe that your proposed solution will help achieve his/her goals no amount of closing skills will cause that prospect to make a buying decision in favor of your solution.

In order to be able prepare a solution that meets the prospects needs and objectives you have to have a full and complete knowledge and understanding of what those needs and objectives are. How are you going to get that? There's only one way - to skillfully ask the right questions that will provide you with the information you need. You cannot do this by asking only a few questions or questions that are directly aimed at eliciting specific responses will be favorable to your product or service. Also, it's vitally important that you ask as few closed ended questions as possible. Simple yes or no answers will not provide you with the kind of information you truly need.

The questions that really get to the heart are "the six wise men" questions that begin with who, what, when, where, why, and how. These open ended questions are the ones that require the prospect to be more descriptive and to elaborate in more detail regarding the information you're seeking. Another important point is this -- not only do you have to have to ask good questions but you have to listen well and restate what you've heard for clarification that you have correctly understood what the prospect said.

The other area that is a potential problem is poor presentation skills. I'm not talking about your ability to prepare a PowerPoint presentation and deliver it. What I'm talking about is the ability to clearly and succinctly talk about your product and service in a way that conveys its ability to provide the answer to the prospects challenges. Much, much too often salespeople are keyed on talking about the features and advantages of their product or service that the completely miss addressing the benefits that they provide as a part of the solution. The skillful presentation of your solution and the benefits of your product or service and how its benefits meet the needs of the prospect is crucial to your closing success.

Even if you have very good questioning and closing skills that will still leave you without a sale if you cannot effectively communicate your solution and its benefits to your prospect.

So, the next time you find yourself having difficulty winning new business when you know that you have directly asked for it, take a step back and ask yourself whether or not you really did a good job of questioning and presenting. If you work on improving those two areas you'll win more business even if you need to improve your ability to close.