The Summary Close Sales Strategy To Close More Sales with Clients | Professional Selling Skills
The summary close is especially useful when you are offering a new service to one of your existing clients. (Sales to existing clients are the most profitable.) When you approach the end of your presentation, your client is faced with the task of organizing all the pieces of information into one clear and comprehensive picture. The summary close is excellent to use in this situation because it is a logical organization of the features and benefits. With the summary close, you are partnering in the decision-making process with your client.
Help Them Decide
Although your client may be very impressed with your vast knowledge, he or she may experience some difficulty organizing what you have said. In essence, the summary close is designed to refocus your prospect’s thinking on a composite picture of those parts of your presentation that clearly fit his or her needs.
Amateur sellers tend to think of the summary close as a quick review of what they like best about the services. They fail to match the summary close to the buyer’s specific situation, and then wonder why the client didn’t buy.
How to Do It
There are four separate steps to a successful summary close:
Introduce the close with a smooth tie-back statement. Say something like, “Tom, I realize we have covered many aspects of the like-kind exchange technique. Why don’t we take a few moments and summarize the salient points?” With a good transition statement, you have prepared the client for the review.
Briefly reconfirm your prospect’s specific needs. You might say it like this: “Tom, you have a very low basis in the real estate you want to sell. When you sell it outright, you will pay a substantial tax. What we are trying to avoid is paying all that tax right now. This is what you’d like to do, right?”
Summarize how the benefits of your features meet the client’s explicit needs. Some professionals use a T-account (summarizing the pluses and minuses for a decision on one sheet) so you and the client will agree on the pros and cons of making the decision.
Ask for the business using a direct request. When you have completed the summary, now it is time to close. You might ask something like this, “Our tax expert, Jeremy, is available to work on this next week. Shall I reserve his time for this project?”
I use the summary close with clients. I tie back to a stated need, state a feature of how to solve that need, a benefit of doing so, and a reconfirming question to keep the client/prospect engaged. It is very helpful in staying focused and engaged with the client/ prospect.
Conclusion
A summary close helps clients understand what you have to offer. And it helps build your profits by making the sale.
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