asking for the sale the art of closing

Sales people always talk about the close, never about the open, to the sales person the close is what they want so that they can add another sale to the target board, yet these very same sales people are afraid and hesitant to close.I personally prefer calling this phase in the sales process asking for the sale, rather than referring to it as the close, the term close gives the entire process a finality, yet customer relations is far from final, as every customer is worth a great deal more to you as a professional sales person than just that one sale. A well handled and satisfied customer will if asked refer others to you, making these customers much easier to deal with.Rather than usinghe clich?d term of closing or close try asking. Asking the customer for the sale. The process has not changed just the terminology.The average sales person is afraid to ask for the sale for fear of being rejected, this will occur if you as the sales person has not properly identified the customers needs and provided the solution to satisfy those needs. Asking for the sale will let you know just how well you have identified and satisfied your customers needs if you are rejected, don't sulk, learn and profit from that rejection rather than taking it personally.Often sales persons tell me "Hey I don't want to be pushy, or come across as being pushy." My response to them is that if you have done your task well your customer is expecting you to ask for the sale; so far from being pushy you are in fact being helpful. Go figure! These types of average sales people have one thing in common mediocrity, and they view asking for the sale as an all or nothing dump. They believe they have to wait till the bitter end and then with great fear and reluctance they may ask for the sale or worse wait for the customer to say " hey where to now?"It is up to you to ask for the sale, and a superb sales person is asking for the sale often through out the sales process, they achieve this with out alienating the customer with a hard close instead they have a system of measuring each close and eventually they have landed the sale. This system is simple and sales people do it all the time with out even knowing it, and therein lies the problem they do not know where they are in the process, so try and close often with disastrous results. Next time a customer says to you "I need to think about it." Ask you're self what I missed during the process, and you will discover that you failed to set measurable objectives.

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