A still smaller minority expressed the opinion which I believe to be the correct one, that while there is undoubtedly one moment that is the best time to close any sale, at the same time there are many moments almost as good, so that the salesman will have many other good chances to close, even if he does pass the one best moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I agree with that, but I have often stated here that the focus needs to be on qualifying instead of closing.\u00a0 Sales don’t close due to poor, or incomplete, qualifying.\u00a0 A salesperson who does not ask for the business will have problems, but not nearly as many as a salesperson who asks for the business without knowing if the deal is qualified.\u00a0 This point is critical to sales success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This topic comes up often in sales discussions – when should I go for the close?\u00a0 Or hiring managers often ask, “Is he a closer?”\u00a0 Or articles state that most salespeople fail because they don’t ask for the order (i.e. close). So what are we to make of this topic?\u00a0 Selling Power offers a bit of an enigmatic article titled Knowing When to Close.\u00a0 The responses are from a sales meeting from 1929 (I don’t know why).\u00a0 The pull quote: A still smaller minority expressed the opinion which I believe to be the correct one, that while there is undoubtedly one moment that is the best time to close any… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[197,184,142,545],"class_list":["post-1516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales-techniques","tag-closing","tag-qualifying","tag-sales-technique","tag-whent-to-close"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-os","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1632,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/06\/fatal-assumptions-of-sales-managers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":0},"title":"Fatal Assumptions Of Sales Managers","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 25, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Good article here from ManageSmarter.com titled Can Training Fix Manager Transition Troubles?\u00a0 The primary topic is transitioning sales managers from sales rep roles.\u00a0 This is now small task and we have seen many crash and burn.\u00a0 The author provides some insightful commentary into this common problem. This section truly stands\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Leadership"","block_context":{"text":"Leadership","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/leadership\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1362,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/the-toughest-topic-to-qualify-money\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":1},"title":"The Toughest Topic To Qualify-Money","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's not really when you know how to do it.\u00a0 Unfortunately, many salespeople have a distinct weakness when it comes to even broaching this topic with a prospect.\u00a0 This weakness leads to compounded expenses in that the salesperson will typically invest time and resources on a prospect who will disappear\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hiring Salespeople"","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1567,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/redefining-the-sales-funnel\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":2},"title":"Redefining The Sales Funnel","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This video from Selling Power discusses a unique look at the traditional sales funnel.\u00a0 The author in the video states that the sales funnel has to be thrown out and redesigned based on the prospect's process.\u00a0 The 4 minute video is an excellent discussion on this topic: If you have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Management"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2478,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2011\/03\/conventional-wisdom-about-sales-managers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":3},"title":"Conventional Wisdom About Sales Managers","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is an article from Eye on Sales that addresses a common sales management topic \u2013 should you promote your top salesperson into the sales manager role?\u00a0 I would argue that the conventional wisdom is to avoid making this mistake. From the article: Sales management mistake #1: Promoting top performers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Assessing"","block_context":{"text":"Assessing","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/assessing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":97,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/06\/lost-sales-analysis\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":4},"title":"Lost Sales Analysis","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 12, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We posted on this topic in our old blog (predates The Hire Sense) and it is worth bumping up to this version. Paul DiModica writes in BDM News about one of the best sales tools around, the Lost Sales Analysis. I will warn you that this article is quite theoretical\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Management"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1347,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/12\/managing-a-remote-salesforce\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":5},"title":"Managing A Remote Salesforce","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"December 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We talk about this topic at length because it is more than a trend.\u00a0 ManageSmarter.com's Long-Distance Teambuilding addresses this topic in a real-world manner: \"Sellers by nature like to be in a team environment\u2014they want a high-five and a talk around the water cooler,\" says Cowitt, vice president of national\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Communication"","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}