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_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":1970,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/03\/the-enormous-forecast\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":0},"title":"The Enormous Forecast","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Shrinking revenue reports are the fear of most sales managers.\u00a0 This fear is further intensified during this economy.\u00a0 There are salespeople who are attempting to leverage this fear by submitting an inflated forecast.\u00a0 These salespeople provide forecasts that are filled with large deals that are welded to the 90 days\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":236,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/08\/connects-to-close-ratio\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":1},"title":"Connects-to-Close Ratio","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Boost Your Conversation-to-Appointment Ratio from Selling Power reads like a companion piece to our post from yesterday. Conversation-to-appointment ratio is what we take a step further and refer to as a connects-to-close ratio. We wrote about this topic in great detail back in January of last year (click here to\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":226,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/08\/what-we-cannot-have\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":2},"title":"What We Cannot Have","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"August 10, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Dan Tudor has a great post on his Landing the Deal blog - \"The Takeaway Close\". The takeaway close is a powerful tool for a salesperson when used properly. I used to work for a sales trainer who taught this technique and it is most effective. Here is the gist\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":1164,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/09\/how-many-calls-does-it-take-to-close\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":3},"title":"How Many Calls Does It Take To Close?","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"September 5, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"That is a pertinent question in successful selling and one we always ask when profiling a sale. Many sales managers that we talk to would like to have a one-call close sale no matter what the sales cycle. That misalignment always leads to a unique discussion. Selling Power offers a\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":177,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/07\/sellings-taboo-topic\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":4},"title":"Selling’s Taboo Topic","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Sales&Marketing Magazine briefly approaches one of sales most taboo topics - Cutting Your Losses. Sometimes customers that you worked so hard to close are simply not a good fit for your business and you have to end the relationship. Tricky stuff but there are some good suggestions in this short\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sales Techniques"","block_context":{"text":"Sales Techniques","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-techniques\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1775,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/11\/quoting-is-not-qualifying\/","url_meta":{"origin":1516,"position":5},"title":"Quoting Is Not Qualifying","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"November 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I run into this topic often and it is one worth defining.\u00a0 Many companies value quotes as strong sales activity.\u00a0 Now don't get me wrong, quotes are a step in the sales process and typically one that occurs before a close.\u00a0 However, companies that have under-defined sales processes often choose\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":[]}],"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}]}}