18 tactics to close more sales

Looking for tactics to close more sales? Then this article is for you!

18 tactics to close more sales

Sales tactic #1 TALK BENEFITS, NOT FEATURES

Nobody wants to read technical details: how much horsepower, how many inches, how many colours, how many hours etc. Instead, turn those features into benefits for your customer. The smartphone is so slim you can fit it into your shirt pocket. The camera is so powerful you can take a high-resolution photo of Betelgeuse, one of the brightest stars in the night sky. This pair of jeans is so comfortable you can dance the tango in them.

Sales tactic #2 OVERCOME ANY OBJECTIONS YOUR PROSPECTS MIGHT HAVE

Get to know your prospects inside out. Make a comprehensive list of every objection you and your team members have heard from prospects during sales calls and find the right answers to overcome them. They might touch on subjects like price, costs, time to implement your solution, better alternatives and so on. Ask questions to discover the underlying issue. You could start with a price objection (‘It’s too expensive’) and discover, by asking follow-up questions, that a payment instalment plan would solve the objection.

Sales tactic #3 ALWAYS ASK FOR NEXT STEPS

Don’t let the conversation die out; keep talking to the prospect. To this end, never finish your emails with ‘Let me know if you are interested’ or ‘Click here to learn more’. Ask for the next steps. (“Are you free Friday for a quick chat?”).

Sales tactic #4 BECOME AN EXPERT ON PROBLEM-FINDING

For decades, sales professionals focused on providing prospects with the solutions they asked for and striving to show them why their solution was the best. This approach could work in some cases and fail in others. Why? Because prospects are experts in problems, not solutions. Henry Ford: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Turn from problem-solving to problem-finding. Identify the hidden problems of your customer to help him move forward with the sale.

Sales tactic #5 NURTURE YOUR AMBIVERSION

Ambiversion is a combination of introversion and extroversion. It’s time to get rid of the myth of strong extroverts being better at selling. Sales experts show that the personality type most effective in sales and persuasion is the ambivert. Ambiverts are more effective and better sales professionals because they have the qualities of both introverts and extroverts:  they know when to push and when to listen.

Sales tactic #6 MASTER POSITIVE SELF-TALK

Research shows that finding arguments is more powerful and more effective than positive self-affirmations. Shift from positive self-affirmations to positive self-talk by turning it into a question: Can I do this? If so, how?

Sales tactic #7 LIST 1 OR 2 MINOR NEGATIVES

Build credibility and prompt persuasion by listing one or two minor negatives following a list of positives related to your product. This increases transparency and trust. And trust is the stepping stone to closing the sale.

Sales tactic #8 REMOVE FRICTION

If you want your prospect to do something, make it easy, really easy for them to do it. Don’t ask them to go through three pages on the website and five steps before they can see the benefits or the How it works video. Spend less time changing minds and more time making their choices easy to make. Reduce friction by trying to align the easy behaviour with the desired behaviour.

Sales tactic #9 FIND THE RIGHT MOTIVATION

If you know your prospect’s profile by heart, you know the right motivation behind their decision to buy. Position your solution in line with their core motivation. Examples of motivation that you can add to influence people’s behaviour: family, money, status, more time for hobbies or family, career, getting things done faster and easier. 

Sales tactic #10 LEVERAGE THE POWER OF WORD-OF-MOUTH

Sales research shows that word-of-mouth has a big impact on behaviour, it generates more than twice the sales of advertising. The goal is not to make a piece of content go viral, it’s to influence one person to tell another person.

Sales tactic #11 ASK ‘WHO DO YOU KNOW THAT I SHOULD KNOW?’

When you realize the conversation with the prospect is not going where it should, end the talk only after asking for a referral with this key question: ‘Who do you know that I should know?’

Sales tactic #12 APPLY SOCIAL CURRENCY CUSTOMER PROFILE-BASED

Social currency refers to the actual and potential resources from presence in social networks and communities, including both digital and offline. What a CEO cares about is different from what a work-from-home parent cares about. So take this into account when drafting your sales pitch. 

Sales tactic #13 FIND THE INNER REMARKABILITY

Every product is unique at least in one way or has something surprising, novel or interesting about it. Find the inner remarkability and show it.

Sales tactic #14 USE THE LOSS AVERSION COGNITIVE BIAS

The Loss aversion cognitive bias describes the tendency to prefer avoiding losses to acquiring equivalent gains. Use the loss aversion bias to your advantage by stating what the prospect stands to lose if they don’t make the purchase. It’s powerful and it will surely get the attention of your prospect.

Sales tactic #15 USE THE FRAMING EFFECT COGNITIVE BIAS

The framing effect cognitive bias is when people decide on options based on whether the information is presented from a positive view or a negative view; e.g. as loss or gain. So are prospects attracted to gains if you present them in the correct light? Let’s say you sell enterprise software. Your product is amazingly efficient: it reduces complaints by 95%. How do you showcase this result to gain the prospect’s interest: 95% fewer complaints per month or 95% more satisfied customers per month? As per the framing effect bias, the latter choice is the right one.

Sales tactic #16 USE THE ZERO-RISK COGNITIVE BIAS

Zero-risk bias is a tendency to prefer the complete elimination of one particular risk over options that could eliminate more risks overall. When given the choice between reducing one risk from 5% to 0% or more risks from 55% to 50%, research finds that people go predominantly with the first choice. To benefit from the zero-risk bias approach, present your prospect with two choices. In the first choice, show how your product eliminates one of the prospect’s problems entirely while in the second choice, your product solves a number of your prospect’s pain points by a considerable margin.

Sales tactic #17 BE A FACILITATOR

Become the focal point and hub for connecting others with good contacts and information. When people are looking for something and you happen to know how to connect them with the source of what they’re looking for, you will become a valuable resource to them. There’s no mistake that those people that are able to connect other people with other people not only make great brokers but are also great salespeople.

Sales tactic #18 COLLECT TESTIMONIALS

A good testimonial can prove to be one of the most powerful sales tools you can use. Get them by talking to existing customers and asking them how things are going. When they give you some good information, ask if you can use it for a testimonial. Remember that a good testimonial is a before-and-after description.