Every great salesperson has a bag of tricks, so to speak, that they reach into when they’re ready to close a sale. They have closing phrases they know work best for their customers. They also know how much of a deal they need in order to sweeten the offer for the most resistant clients.
But what happens when those phrases and deals, which typically work for you, fail? What should you do then? In this post, we'll look at some unconventional ways to close the sale.
1. Personalize your sales strategy from the get-go.
If you had an iguana for a pet and you walked into a pet store, and a sales person approached you and asked if you needed a new habitat for your iguana, imagine how impressed you would be. Personalizing your sales strategy and knowing just what your customers need from the very start is a great way to get on good terms with your prospect, and may help you close the sale sooner than later.
Add tools directly to your inbox to make connecting with prospects and clients easy. SalesforceIQ works with your Gmail or Exchange account to tie your inbox to your CRM. And Rapportive is a free tool you can use in Gmail to get insights on your prospects from inside the comfort of your inbox. It takes your prospect's email address and searches for them on LinkedIn. When it finds the prospect, Rapportive pulls their pertinent LinkedIn information into your Gmail inbox when you open their message.
Use LinkedIn to Learn More About Your Prospects
- Check their profiles to get to know them
- Educational history
- Groups they’re members of
- Which pages they’re following
- Volunteer experience
- If you use Gmail, install Rapportive to get a contact’s LinkedIn information pulled directly into your inbox
Find out more about who they are, what they do, and possibly what their interests are. This will allow you to customize your sales pitch from start to finish, making it easier to close the sale.
2. Know what your prospect does with your message and when.
Have you ever had something happen at just the right time to set things in motion that otherwise might have never happened? With the right tools, you can close sales by getting in touch with your prospect at the right time. Yesware allows you to know how your prospect interacts with your message and when.
This allows you to respond to them exactly when you need to. For example, let's say you sent an email with the top five benefits of your product, and included corresponding links to landing pages. If you know they only clicked on one of those links but they didn’t use your call to action, during your follow up you can ask if they want to schedule a demo. Show them how they can get that benefit for their business right now with your product.
Or, let's say it's been a couple months since you last emailed a prospect, and you get an alert that they just reopened your email and downloaded the attachment. You can send out a friendly "just checking in" email a few minutes later; they will be astounded because they were just considering your benefits. What a coincidence!
Great salespeople work hard to make sure “coincidences” happen. And not only does Yesware work with many email platforms, it also syncs with Salesforce so you can get all your data when and where you need it most.
3. Put in some face time.
Chances are your prospects are doing some comparison shopping. If you’re in an industry where most follow-ups are done via email and phone calls, and you're not in a position where you can schedule an in-person meeting, it's time to one-up your competition by getting in some virtual face time.
Let your prospect know you would be happy to jump on a Skype, Facetime, or Snapchat session with them at any time to answer any questions they might have.
Why these platforms, you ask? Whether you deal with business professionals or general consumers, there's a 99 per cent chance they have at least one of these apps installed on their desktop computer, tablet, or smartphone. They are easy to use and connect with, and don't cost a thing.
You could also use Google Hangouts, a meeting service, or a webinar platform, but those can be buggy, require you to install additional software, and be hard to use on mobile devices. Plus, they may make prospects think you're trying to get them into a demo, and then a sales pitch, and that can turn them off right away.
The goal with putting in virtual face time is to make it easy for your prospect to connect with you wherever they are in the moment, just for a simple video chat: No strings attached. And hopefully, once they see your smiling face and get that personal touch, it will be harder for them to say no. You'll no longer be a faceless voicemail on their phone or an address in their inbox. You'll be a real person!
4. Target them with ads.
Over 1 billion people use Facebook on a daily basis. There's a good chance your prospect, as well as people your prospect works with, will be on Facebook every day. Hence, you need to be reaching out to them with ads about your products or services. Every single day. And not just the person you're trying to convert, but everyone they work with.
Here's why: Imagine if you were thinking about buying something, and you heard someone else in your office talking about it. Whether it was a personal or business product, it would reinforce the thought of buying that product.
Use Facebook and LinkedIn to Target Prospects with Ads
- For companies with a strong Facebook presence, target everyone who linked their personal profile as an employee of the company
- Create your ad using a Saved Audience set up in Ads Manager
- Go to Tools > Audiences
- Minimum audience size: 2,500
- Filter by interests to reduce audience size
- Include additional companies to increase audience size
- Create a LinkedIn ad
- Target by company
- Filter by skills or another field to reduce audience size
So how do you shower your prospect and their colleagues with ads? Target them on Facebook. If their company has a strong Facebook presence, you can target everyone who has linked their personal profile as an employee of the company. Create your ad using a Saved Audience set up in Ads Manager under Tools > Audiences.
You need a minimum audience size of 2,500 people, so if the company you are targeting doesn't meet that number, add in other companies you'd like to reach with your sales pitch, including companies you know your prospect talks to on a regular basis.
You can take it a step further by adding in LinkedIn Ads and target by—you guessed it—company.
If you feel your audience size on either Facebook or LinkedIn is too large, you can limit the audience by adding skills or interests. For example, if you want to get everyone in the marketing department talking about your product, add marketing as an interest on Facebook and a skill on LinkedIn.
5. Network with them online.
Be an unobtrusive yet consistent presence in your prospects’ online lives—their public online lives, that is. You don’t need to comment on their baby pictures on Facebook, but consider answering their questions on Twitter or commenting on a post from their Facebook page. Interact with them on a regular basis to subtly remind them that you're there, interested in them, and you want their business.
This, of course, all depends on what you sell. If you sell baby goods, and they publicly post pictures of their child on Instagram, by all means, comment on how cute that baby is! If your prospect has a blog, that’s a great resource for networking: Read and comment on their articles to show them you’re getting to know them, especially if it's a business blog. Who doesn't want to work with someone who actively tries to get to know them? Furthermore, when you comment on blogs, you may be noticed by more potential prospects if you pick the right communities.
How to Use RSS to Stay Updated on Important Blogs
- RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication
- Its icon:
- An RSS feed strips the information from a blog or website to the bare essentials
- Read content on a larger number of platforms
- Automatically keep track of when new content is posted
- RSS aggregators
- A internet program that’s web-based or desktop-based
- Available as apps, too
- Also known as feed reader
- Runs in the background
- Constantly waits for sites to post new content
- When something new pops up on a site you’re subscribed to, it instantaneously gets sent to your feed reader
6. Network with them offline.
Especially if you're a B2B company, find out if there are industry events your prospect plans to attend. If you have a good reason to attend, do it. This will be an invaluable opportunity to network with your prospects and customers in person.
You can usually find out who is attending industry events by looking at the event’s page on Facebook. Check out the guest list to see who will be there, as well as others who may go.
When people publicly announce they are going to an event months in advance, use this information so you can be in the same place. Many businesses send salespeople to events to network and meet with customers.
You shouldn't aim to close a sale at an event. Attend so you can meet your prospects in person. Again, it's about getting in face time and going from a virtual connection to a real one. And when you're trying to connect with a public speaker, it's even easier: Find their website, where they'll usually publish their speaking schedule. Investigate these events to see if they’re valid opportunities to connect.
Closing thoughts
Sometimes it takes a little creativity to close a sale. With these six methods you’ll get to know your prospects better and speak to them on their level. Stay in touch, reach out to them in a variety of ways, and become a person—not just a name or a voice—to close the sale.
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