{"id":511,"date":"2006-12-18T12:49:59","date_gmt":"2006-12-18T18:49:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=511"},"modified":"2006-12-18T12:49:08","modified_gmt":"2006-12-18T18:49:08","slug":"the-truth-about-closing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/12\/the-truth-about-closing\/","title":{"rendered":"The Truth About Closing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re working with a new customer who has brought up a topic which merits discussion. His contention is that he needs a salesperson who is a strong closer since their company competes in a somewhat commoditized market space. A fair conclusion.<\/p>\n<p>But a wrong one.<\/p>\n<p>Closing is the eventual outcome of a selling system but it is not the most critical phase. Qualifying is the stage at which most deals are won or lost. In fact, here is a bit of a shocker &#8211; qualified deals close themselves. It&#8217;s true. If a salesperson can qualify a prospective deal effectively, they can navigate to a successful close.<\/p>\n<p>Salespeople who only know how to &#8220;close&#8221; are better suited for working in the holiday kiosks at the local mall. They can quickly jump passerbys and attempt to close them whether the passerby has a need or not. These types of salespeople subscribe to the approach that when all you have is a hammer, everything is a nail.<\/p>\n<p>A salesperson who qualifies an opportunity will determine the prospect&#8217;s needs or pains, their budget to fix this pain and their time frame for making the pain go away. These are the pieces of the puzzle that lead to a successfully closed deal. This skill set is far more valuable in comparison to a salesperson who attempts to close any opportunity whether worthwhile or wasteful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re working with a new customer who has brought up a topic which merits discussion. His contention is that he needs a salesperson who is a strong closer since their company competes in a somewhat commoditized market space. A fair conclusion. But a wrong one. Closing is the eventual outcome of a selling system but it is not the most critical phase. Qualifying is the stage at which most deals are won or lost. In fact, here is a bit of a shocker &#8211; qualified deals close themselves. It&#8217;s true. If a salesperson can qualify a prospective deal effectively, they can navigate to a successful close. Salespeople who only know&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/12\/the-truth-about-closing\/\">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_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_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","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16,9],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-8f","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. The path to wp-cache-phase1.php in wp-content/advanced-cache.php must be fixed! -->