Today I interview a great friend of mine, Matt Elwell – founder of Elite Closing Academy.

In this episode you will learn the difference between Selling and Closing, and more importantly how the different elements of this process to help you close more business, convert more sales and help more people.

All we did today was talk about the Ancient Art of Closing Sales.

Essentially, Sales is an important process but understanding how we close is crucial for any business owner.

Matt’s point of view is that his learning came from a very young age. He had a great Sales training when he was working for others and this has put him in good stead.

Also, He added that during that time when he was working he knew that his company didn’t have a process or a system for closing business.

He soon realised that he needed a “way” of creating a better human to human connection. The power of voice, the way we speak, the words and language that we use has a huge impact in closing sales.

Matt mentioned that People don’t want being sold to because of previous horrible experiences. Most sales people don’t listen and they don’t ask great questions.

Being able to close doesn’t mean taking money of people. It means the logical next step on the journey – once you master the logical next step on the journey on the prospecting cycle that’s when the process becomes much easier and more natural

Matt has 2 key teaching on the subject;

• Prospecting journey – “Understanding the caterpillar egg into a beautiful butterfly.” Understanding the lifespan of your prospects and/or customers. How long it takes somebody to go from cold to sold- from caterpillar egg to beautiful butterfly and most importantly, understanding how to nudge your prospects through the process and knowing how many contacts you need to have before they are ready and you’ve earned the right to ask a closing question.
• Understanding the Serve Sell/Close Cycle – A lot of business get that wrong because they are serving so much that they forget to sell and forget to close. This can be really frustrating particularly in Consultants. I find them full of information, full of strategies and techniques, experience and knowledge. All the things that they want to tell people about but actually that is the real problem because if you are telling - you are hard selling. The power of the serve sell/close circle is to understand how to serve sell and close at the same time and understand this key concept. The highest level of serving a prospect is to sell congruently and sell well and close somebody that needs what you do. Closing is serving on a high level.

Ian asked about the clients and the prospects that are fighting on price.

According to Matt you have to look at your own beliefs around money and price before you can master this part of the system.

He added, the thing that is very helpful and interesting to consider in 2020 is to replace the word “Price” with “Investment”.

If you really want to increase your conversion in 2020 and grow your business then you must go towards the pains and the problems and the challenges that your prospects are having that your service or product solves.

In many cases, if you use the word price it will always be too much and if your sales or your process is around money then you’re really going to struggle.

The System we use is the PUNTq system for serving:

• Pain – You must solve problems and pains and challenges
• Urgency – if there are no promises there are no urgency
• Need – find out what they need to solve that problem
• Trust - asked question to build an enormous amount of trust

Matt said, if there is really a solution to a problem then people would really consider investing. When you are the solution to the problem; money is never an issue because they can see the value to their money.

The Q is then the high quality question that you ask.

He added, there’s always an investment for time, money, thinking, energy, mindset, and attitude – but my advice is to focus on results because people pay for results.

Moreover, you have to position your price at the very beginning of the prospecting journey and then ask these powerful questions that linked to pain, urgency, need and trust.

• Other than money/investment/cost/price give me 5 of the reasons why us working together would benefit your business?
• What are you criteria other than money can make you decide to use our product or services?

Ian asked what is it on the prospecting journey that people aren’t going buy you or aren’t going marry you that we need to understand when nurturing the brand new prospect.

• Discipline
• Certainty
• Process

They also talked about the difference between Selling and Closing.

Selling is getting to the point where they want to buy and Closing is when they actually buy the product.

However, Matt believes all the selling is done on an individual contact prior to a written proposal.

Like a caterpillar and butterfly system - It’s a game of two halves;

• Understanding and asking powerful questions, finding out pain, urgency, need and trust.
• When you decided that you and your prospect are a good match that’s when you start sharing quality information.

Now, the moment you’ve than done that is when you need to stop selling and start closing. When they believe that you have that information that will help them resolve their problems.

Ian states that, testimonials and client results will also help you build your own credibility and certainty.

Matt added, you must be certain within yourself. Sell it to yourself first. You have to be actually sold with the business you are selling.

Asked these important questions;

• If my business is not here who suffers?
• When you founded this business - what is your strongest reason of doing it?
• And more importantly, if you weren’t here who’s got a problem?

ITS Quick Fire Round

1) If you were to 'bottle' one part of your business journey and sell it, what would that be and why?

Knowing the difference of when to stop selling and start closing.

Follow up question: What signal would you expect to get from somebody when the prospects are really warm and move towards the closing?

You will know the moment when you should ask the big question.

2) What is your biggest learning/regret and advice to listeners when scaling their business.

People - Your business is only as good as the people that operate it. Identify the skills that you don’t have and hire people who have those skills to fill that role.

3) What is your favourite App on your phone and Why?

Elite Closing app.

Guest Details

To contact Matt Elwell, check out his social media accounts or

Visit his website: https://www.eliteclosingacademy.com/sales-accelerator

And/or download his app: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/elite-closing-academy/id1468828449

Links and Resources

If you are looking to scale your IT / Tech Consultancy Business and don’t know where to start, then check out our IT Experts Growth Academy Group on LinkedIn - a collaborative and safe environment to learn the foundations to IT and Tech Business Growth - click here to request access - https://goo.gl/weymKj

You can also download the e-book by clicking this link - http://tiny.cc/ITE-Ebook19

Quotes

Remember this one key thing; Become the solution to a problem and your business will grow because when you are the solution to a problem that’s when you become very relevant to other businesses and people. – Matt Elwell