Sales managers: help your sales staff to gain customer commitment!

When was the last time a salesperson came back from a demonstration drive and told you (the sales manager) that he or she has gained commitment from the customer, so you stacked up a 4Square presentation (or whatever it is that you use) – only to see the prospective customer walking out the door a couple of minutes later?

Do you find this happens quite a lot or even some of the time?

More often than not, this happens because your salesperson hasn’t actually got a firm commitment from the customer at all. 

How we can solve this problem

Next time a member of your team comes back from a test drive and you’ve got them in your office, don’t just ask them:  Have you got commitment?  Or, have you trial closed?  Because nine times out of ten they will say ‘yes’, regardless of whether it happens to be true! 

Phrase the question in this way instead:  “What trial close question did you ask?”

One advantage of asking this question is that it’s not so easy for the salesperson to make up the answer – although I suspect you’ll be amazed how often they try to duck the issue by telling you:  “Yeah, I think they’re going to go ahead with it”!

At this stage, it’s not important what the salesperson thinks. You want to know what the customer thinks.

Coaching opportunity

Don’t pass up the opportunity to do a bit of on-the-spot coaching.  Say to them something like: 

“While I’m finishing this off, can you do me a favour? Pop back out and ask the customer:  "If the figures stack up right for you, is this the car you’d like to be driving for the next two or three years?”  Or whatever particular trial close you want your salespeople to use.

Start doing this all the time, and you’ll get better commitment from your customers – and fewer of them walking before you’ve had a chance to talk.

Check out my video on this subject -

Tips on confirming commitment