Never fail to ask for the sale

As regular readers will know, your humble correspondent has been locked in a Taskmaster Towers broom cupboard, listening back over inbound sales calls this past week.

Earlier today, Old Taskmaster heard a call where a sales rep had just sold a customer a widget. Now they are going for the upsell.

“Now, you mentioned earlier that you run a small business and you’re a little short staffed at the moment. You might not know this, but aside from just selling widgets, Taskmaster Enterprises can also offer your business with on-site support for your widgets,” says the young sales rep.

“We can offer x hours across up to y visits of on-site support – where a trained widget technician can help you set up or maintain your widget – for just $z!

“The value for you is instead of hiring your own widget technician – and then having to deal with payroll tax, super and all the paperwork that goes with it – you can have a qualified widget technician on-site whenever you need one.

“I’m sure you’ll agree, compared to the cost of hiring a technician, having one on-site for just $z for 12 months is a really great deal…”

Up until this point, it all went so very well. There is a strong customer benefit and a clear value proposition for the customer. The sales pitch is based on an answer a customer gave to a discovery question earlier in the call. Rapport with the customer is strong. Most importantly, the customer sounds interested.

To close the deal, in Old Taskmaster’s estimation, all this customer service rep needed to ask was, “Do you want to start an on-site support contract?”

Then came the face-palm moment. That ship – the USS Upsell – suddenly sets sail past the sale and instead smashes into the shipwreck coast.

“Anyway, that’s something to be aware of for the future. Can I help you with anything else today?” asks the sales rep.

Old Taskmaster reaches up to the heavens in slow motion and shouts “Noooooooooooo!”

Unfortunately, in sales such occurrences are far too common.

Sales reps jump through all the hoops and perform a solid sales spiel, only to not go that final step and ask to close the deal. Perhaps it’s because they don’t want to come across as pushy salespeople and are reluctant to sound like they are selling something as a result?

Well, Old Taskmaster says this: There’s absolutely no point in convincing a customer to purchase a product if you don’t ask for the sale!

Be nice to your customers by building rapport and delivering your promises, not by failing to ask them for the sale out of a fear of being pushy!

Similarly, if any of your staff fail to ask for the sale, coach them to stop!

Get it done – every sales call!