From all the stages of the Sales Cycle, Closing was always considered to be the most crucial and the one that every salesperson is taught to concentrate his/her efforts.  There are dozens of books written about it and even more closing techniques available that claim to guarantee 100% results. 

All these years, Closing was portrayed as the ultimate battleground between resourceful and sweet-talking salespeople versus difficult and constantly demanding customers.  But are things really that dramatic?

In their book “Closing”, Christensen, Frontz and Susa claim that “Closing is the process of successful decision making that has happened long before the day the contract is awarded or inked.”  So, we are not talking about something that comes out of the blue, but we need always to remind ourselves that it is a part of a process.  Therefore, if we have successfully completed the previous steps, then most of the times Closing and getting eventually the business will be a natural consequence.  The question that arises is how we define “successful”?

Sales guru Anthony Iannarino states that: “Selling effectively is all about gaining commitments”.  In order to obtain commitments, then we must create Value throughout the Sales Cycle.  Thus, it is safe to say that a successful “close” is the direct result of how the salesperson has or hasn’t added value to the decision-making process along the way.    

Even from the very first interaction with the customer, it is all about creating Value that will eventually bring us the Sale and not some hard-sell closing techniques, which belong to the past.