Apply these techniques and have a HUGE change in your sales game, become the best closer, and gain confidence. Let’s get started!

1. Figure out your current closing rate. First step to fixing a problem is identifying the problem! You won’t be able to improve your closing rate unless you FIRST know what it currently is. To find your closing rate divide the number of sales you close by the number of people you actually talk to, then times that number by 100.

Ex. If last month I closed 20 out of 175 people I talked to; my closing rate is 11.43%.

Now that you know your closing rate, the next step is to find out what part of your sales conversation is preventing you from having better results.

Questions to help find the area that needs the most improvement:

• When does the customer start to lose interest?
• How many customers ask “how much” during your pitch?
• Do you avoid the hard close at the end of your sales conversation?
• Are you talking to enough customers daily or weekly?
• Do you have the dialogue down so you sound confident and competent?
• Are you creating enough need and value for your customers?
• Have you become rusty, but are too lazy to go back and study and train so that you can be prepared during your sales conversation?
• Do you lose the customers when they bring up objections?
• Do you know all the objections the customer could possibly give you and how to overcome them?

2. Set realistic goals. Once you have identified the problem and the greatest area that needs work in your sales conversation, it’s imperative to set specific goals to improve. A big mistake you want to avoid is setting unrealistic goals. You don’t want to set yourself up for failure, so choose a goal that is obtainable but will also push you. Set a goal based on increasing your closing rate from say 10% to 20% in a month. You could also base your goal on something more specific that you know you have control over like setting a goal of how many prospects you can get to ask “how much” for the month and start working towards that. The goal is based on the problem you identified in Step 1.

3. Pay attention. Once you identify your current closing rate and set a goal to improve, review your progress WEEKLY over the period of one month. Make a log and write down details regarding your progress, closing rate, and what areas of your sales conversation you will focus on for the next week. No one else will do this for you so you have to hold yourself accountable. It comes down to how serious are you about improving your closing rate.

4. Consistency. The best salesmen in the world have high closing rates because they are consistent. Don’t try and go for big production days (this will just burn you out and frustrate you when you don’t hit your goal.) Instead, learn to be consistent. Start with getting 5 people to ask “how much” per day. Once you can accomplish that for a whole week, raise your goal to one sale a day. Once you can close one sale per day consistently for a whole week, without getting zero sales in a day, raise your goal to two sales per day. Once you can close two sales a day for a whole week, raise your goal up to three sales a day. Gradually increase your daily, weekly, and monthly goal so you achieve more consistency which will lead to a much higher closing rate.

5. Self critique. No one else is a better critique than yourself. Record your sales pitch daily and listen to it over and over. Find out where you can improve so you can change or fix it. By immersing yourself in review of your sales conversation you will pinpoint key moments you can adjust to have a higher closing rate. Remember in sales, it’s not so much what you say, it’s how you say it. Recording your pitch will help you with master your meta-verbal communication.

6. Listen to the customer, then listen more. Listening to the customer is by far one of the hardest communication skills to master but also has the most potential to close any sale if done right. The key is, while you’re listening, do not try and think about what you’re going to say next. You have to sincerely care about what your customer is saying and what THEIR NEED is. Listening attentively will give you key ingredients as to how to meet their need and build value making your product or service an absolute must in their life. Successful listeners are categorized as the best conversationalists. Seriously, listening and just being a good human to your customer will provoke that compliment. Make this a priority!

7. Qualify customers. Don’t waste your time with customers that are not qualified. This sounds like a simple and common sense technique, however, so many sales professionals waste time with prospects they KNOW will not buy. So how do you qualify customers? By asking qualifying questions. Practice and learn questions you can ask that will help you know whether or not the customer is serious and a good fit for your product or service.

8. Confidence. If you close without confidence, you won’t get the sale, period. A lot of clients ask, “How do you gain the confidence?” Confidence is created through practice, practice, and more practice. You have to know your product, market, and your customers. If you need help, ask successful colleagues in your industry what they say, how they say it, and what they have done to be so successful. Become obsessed with mastering your sales conversation dialogue. If you learn from every conversation then you can’t lose!

If you’re missing out on sales by not implementing actions like these into your sales regimen, you must invest in yourself and your ability to take knowledge and turn it into action. BlackLine provides a MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION that will expand your mind and allow you to increase sales production.

Lastly, if you’re ready to invest in yourself and you want to make a change in your life, fill out the form below. Once I receive your application, we will have a chat about what your needs are and how one of my products can solve it. Hint: I’m really good at this stuff. Let me help you, but it’s not free