SHOULD WE “ALWAYS BE CLOSING” IN 2020?
Many of you have heard the term. ABC — Always Be Closing.
I may be wrong about this but if memory serves me well, it made its first appearance in 1992 in the movie Glengarry Glen Ross in a scene where Alec Baldwin tries to motivate his sales team to hit targets. It later became a mantra for corporate America. It's being used for decades as a training tool for salespeople all over the world, helping build careers and businesses along the way.
We even see a very similar approach depicted in the 2003 movie Wolf of Wall Street. Jordan Belfort, the character played by Leonardo Di Caprio in the movie, employs a high-pressure tactic to sell penny shares to his customers. In one quote he says “My warriors, who won’t take ‘No’ for an answer. Who won’t hang up the phone till their client either buys. Or F***ing dies!
But it’s 2020, is this still relevant? Do people want to be closed? Have they ever? And, does it matter?
When I’m helping people have better sales careers, I’m not teaching them to go in with the mindset of being a closer. In fact, in the BeFree Academy, we don’t even have a closing section. And that’s completely intentional. To me, closing is a natural part of a sales process done well. It’s not a thing we have to do or something we focus on. If you’ve done everything right:
- Be someone that people want to do business with by being an expert
- Have identified a need with the customer by asking the right questions
- Presented well
- Clarified that the budget is in place and there are no competing elements
- Satisfied the objections any of the decision-makers may have
- Engaged your prospect by telling a captivating story
Then the close will happen. It’s just the next step in the process.
At the BeFree Academy, we teach people to ask the right questions at the right time. We teach people to identify objections for what they really are and we teach people to walk away if it’s not the right deal for them, their business, or their customer.
Most importantly, we are strong believers that we should be selling on value and helping our prospects solve a problem in their business or their lives. If we’re selling because you have a target to hit, a prospect can smell you a mile away.