How many meetings and calls do you actually need to close a sale? People's answers range from 1 call to 3 months of meetings and calls. Here's my answer for most situations when selling to small companies and individuals.
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The traditional sales process consists of about 5 meetings or calls. There are many phases which you have to go through in order to close the sale. In the last phase you might even not get paid 100% upfront.
It is not necessary the sales process to take that long. You can get the sale much sooner.
People usually think that it takes a certain amount of meetings to close a sale. That is absolutely true when you are dealing with a huge company. There is no way to get them out of their buying process. You cannot close a sale with such companies on the first call. However, if you are dealing with a small company, you can close them on the first call and get 100% of the money upfront.
Here is an example with a caveman.
A caveman is used to travel all around a mountain to drink water and then travel back with the risk of getting injured or killed. If I take him to my apartment and allow him to drink my water, he would not believe that this is water, because he has a different perspective of getting water.
Imagine that you have to spend all of that effort to get what you want. This applies to sales as well.
A lot of sales people believe that they have to spend enormous amount of effort to get to that first sale. In fact, it is a lot easier than they think. They just have not put in enough time and effort to do the research of how the sales process works.
Sales people have to look at it as a scientist and test it. They have to compare the actual data, results and processes and see what gets them the best results, based on their time investment. Lower opportunity cost and increased profit per day. That is what you have to do if you are in business and in sales.
If you are dealing with very big companies you might spend a few months to establish the relationship between you and them. They can be very influential companies and in the name of the bigger potential profit you have to spend more time to close them.
However, it is 100% possible to close people or small companies during the first call. You have to adjust to the people you are working with.
The other people, who are trying to get people to work for them, also realize that their time is valuable and they do not want to spend a lot of time on sales conversations with you. If you deliver enough value to them, most likely you will close them on the first call.
Here is the #1 method to shorten the buying cycle.
You have to find out their most deeply desired needs that they don’t want to share. You need to ask the right questions. The most important phase of the sales process is the motivation phase.
You have to ask questions like:
1. Why do you need this project done?
2. Why are you motivated to work with me?
3. Why do you want this part of your business handled?
You keep asking until you get logical reasons. The more they give you reasons, the more they will assure you they want to buy.
If you ask the right questions, you can skip all these meetings and they will sell the product to themselves. You will not have to spend a lot of time figuring everything out. This is the most important phase of the sales process.
You have to include that powerful strategy in your sales process. It will increase your close rate by a factor or two. I have tried it myself and was able to increase my close rate from 25% to 50% / 80% close rate.
I am not the perfect sales person, but it worked for me really well. So, it will work for you as well.