Too many salespeople spend too much time selling and no time closing. These two things—selling and closing—are completely different arts. Selling requires you to sell features, options and get emotional involvement. The close requires persistence and logic to make sense of getting your customer to make a decision. Do you know how to create the bridge between selling and closing? A bridge is something that is intended to reconcile or form a connection between two things. If you are like any true sales professional, you are constantly looking for new ways to be more effective with your sales presentation. One of the things I noticed was that my sales team was presenting long after the buyer had seen enough. So I took all of our presentations apart and broke them into five stages. At the end of each stage, I require them to ask a question, and this question is the bridge between selling and closing. The close is where the money in sales is determined. Let’s face it there’s no money in selling if you don’t close—and most sales people are not asking for the close early enough. By using this simple bridge that I’m about to reveal, we dramatically increased the confidence of our sales team and our conversion rates.

“Have you seen enough to make a decision?”

This works like a miracle with customers. They will either say, “no I haven’t,” allowing you to continue with the presentation, or you will close 80 percent faster than previously. Sometimes you will find out you didn’t even have the right decision-makers in the room. The “have you seen enough to make a decision” is a bridge between selling and closing because it’s a question that gets you in communication with the client on where they are in their information gathering /decision making process. Believe me, you don’t want to continue presenting long after the buyer has seen enough. Sometimes the buyer decides to take action before he/she agrees to take action, and long before you even get involved with the customer. This is an amazing phenomenon, and once you get your head wrapped around it, it will help you increase your sales. I know veteran salespeople that are unable to wrap their head around this and spend more time selling than necessary. Remember, you don’t get paid to sell, talk or present, you get paid to close. Understand what I am saying – your customer makes a decision to buy and you don’t have anything to do with it, except to know when they have made a decision to purchase. The way to do that is to ask, “have you seen enough to make a decision?” Consider the possibility that you are actually slowing the customer down from buying when you go on and on presenting. I was recently in a presentation with a buddy of mine who makes upward of $20 million in sales per year. While he was presenting his product to a customer of mine I interrupted him and asked, “have you seen enough to justify the price of John’s product?” The customer said no and I told John to continue. John showed another feature and I asked the same question again, “have you seen enough to make a decision?” “Have you seen enough to make a decision?” This is the bridge between selling and closing. You need this bridge. Now depending on your sales cycle, sales model, and possibly your product, this bridge could vary a little, so here are a few other similar bridges that we use that can accomplish different things. What do you like about what you have seen up to this point?”  Up to this point, what problems do you see us helping out with?” Have you seen enough to make sense of the investment?” Whether you are selling cars or selling yourself on Tinder, use the “Have you seen enough to make a decision?” and you’ll spend less time selling and start closing. Remember that it’s closing which separates those who have from those who do not. For more on selling and closing, check out my store where I’ve got some great deals!
Be great,
GC Grant Cardone is a New York Times bestselling author, the #1 sales trainer in the world, and an internationally renowned speaker on leadership, real estate investing, entrepreneurship, social media, and finance. His 5 privately held companies have annual revenues exceeding $100 million. Forbes named Mr. Cardone #1 of the “25 Marketing Influencers to Watch in 2017”. Grant’s straight-shooting viewpoints on the economy, the middle class, and business have made him a valuable resource for media seeking commentary and insights on real topics that matter. He regularly appears on Fox News, Fox Business, CNBC, and MSNBC, and writes for Forbes, Success Magazine, Business Insider, Entrepreneur.com, and the Huffington Post. He urges his followers and clients to make success their duty, responsibility, and obligation. He currently resides in South Florida with his wife and two daughters. To ► Subscribe to his YouTube Channel, click here
Previous articleHow to Close a Hot Lead
Next article3 Fundamental Video Ingredients
Star of Discovery Channel’s “Undercover Billionaire,” Grant Cardone owns and operates seven privately held companies and a private equity real estate firm, Cardone Capital, with a multifamily portfolio of assets under management valued at over $4 billion. He is the Top Crowdfunder in the world, raising over $900 million in equity via social media. Known internationally as the leading expert on sales, marketing, and scaling businesses, Cardone is a New York Times bestselling author of 11 business books, including “The 10X Rule,” which led to Cardone establishing the 10X Global Movement and the 10X Growth Conference, now the largest business and entrepreneur conference in the world. The online business and sales educational platform he created, Cardone University, serves over 411,000 individuals and Forbes 100 corporate clients throughout the world. Voted the top Marketing Influencer to watch by Forbes, Cardone uses his massive 15 million plus following to give back via his Grant Cardone Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to mentoring underserved, at-risk adolescents in financial literacy, especially those without father figures.