Recently, we had a negotiation with an existing buyer. They had severely cut back their purchasing quantities under direct orders from the European Headquarters. A new President had arrived and looking at the global training bill, decided he could save a lot of dough if they did it all themselves. The first salvo was to reduce the amount of previously scheduled training while they sorted it out. Actually, his local team just cannot do it from a time perspective and on the talent front.
Anyway, they came back to us with a request to resurrect one of the cancelled classes. That was good. They also wanted some materials supplied which we had not previously supplied. The salesperson’s job was to ask for payment for the production and supply of those new materials.
I told him that when he puts forth the number, he should then shut up and not say another word. When we mention a big number or, in this case, a new number, we create tension in the room. For some salespeople, this tension is too much. They suffer from “imposter syndrome” and begin to doubt their worth, their solutions’ worth, their company’s worth and a myriad of other doubts crop up. They feel the overpowering need to lighten the mood. They want to reduce the tension by adding more explanation or by trying to pile on more value.
This misses the point. You want the tension. The buyer feels the tension too and they now have the stress, not us. Now they have to justify why the thing you are asking for is not possible. Usually, they don’t have a well thought out reason, so they are struggling internally with how to deal with our proposal. When we jump in and start babbling, we reduce the pressure on them to justify the number they want. This is their escape route. We have given them enough time to come up with why they can’t accept our offer. We have just handed them to keys to the door to escape from the tension we have built up. Invariably, we don’t get what we wanted because we sabotaged our own efforts, by speaking when we should have kept stony silence in play as our weapon.
Asking for the order is another stressful crossover point in the conversation with the buyer. We were delivering a demonstration class recently for a very large insurance company. The original plan was for a suite of trainings for their managers. The HR team was well on the way to getting this going when someone in senior management questioned the content.
The certain deal now became highly uncertain. HR asked us for a demonstration class to prove the content was suitable and so we naturally agreed to do that. To my delight, they said they would pay for the demonstration, rather than forcing us to do it for nothing. The money wasn’t the issue. It was an open competition with other firms for the business and I recall the HR person commenting to me that he thought our fees were cheap. After hearing that, I think I should raise our fees!
So we did the demonstration class and it went very well. We had the senior director in the class checking on the content, the actual direct boss of the HR person I had been dealing with. At this point, I could have asked for the business very directly by saying “so, are we approved to do the actual class for the managers now?”. For many salespeople, especially in Japan, that is too direct. In fact, a lot of Japanese salespeople wouldn’t have said anything and just left it to the buyer to tell them they had the business. The reason for this is simple. They abhor rejection and being told “no” and buyers too don’t like it either. Japan is a very civil society and confrontation is frowned upon, so a direct and clear “no” is avoided.
Rather than just leaving it up in the air, we can ask for the order in a very low stress way. In this case, I used a “minor point” close. The original intention was that if the demonstration class went well, we would do the real class with twenty managers in the following month. I simply asked, “So next month there will be twenty people in the class?”. If there is to be no class, then this question is irrelevant. When they affirm that is the case and it will be twenty managers, they are indirectly saying we have the business and we proceed as planned.
I could have used an “alternative of choice” close. Here I would say, “are we still thinking about the next month for the class or are we thinking in two months’ time?”. This is not a “yes” or a “no” answer. It is a “yes” answer across two distinct possibilities.
I could have used the “next step” close. In this case, I would ask, “so the next step is to confirm the date we spoke about earlier for the class for the managers. Shall we lock that date in?”. If they say, “yes, lock the date in”, that means the class is going to go ahead, and they have accepted our proposal and we have a deal.
All of these techniques are smooth, low or no pressure and easy to put forth. They don’t create a lot of tension with the buyers, because the approach is tangential. If they were not going to go ahead, then they would likely say, “we will get together and discuss the demonstration class and get back to you”.
Having said that, in many cases that would be legitimate here, because in a consensus broad based decision-making system, there are people who are not in the room who need to be consulted before a concrete decision can be made. It is also a way of not telling you “no” to your face, which can be stressful for both sides. They just send you an email later telling you they have “taken another path” or some other code words for “no”.
We can use tension when closing, to help us get a result. We can also ask for the order in a stress-free way and overcome our fears of excessive tension in the sale. We just need a clear preconceived plan, sales technique and guts.
