Value-Added Selling, Fourth Edition: How to Sell More Profitably, Confidently, and Professionally by Competing on Value—Not Price, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 24

The Commitment Stage (Closing)

You’ve opened the sales call, conducted a needs analysis, and presented your solution. Now, you’re ready for buyer commitment on the next step—the point at which you achieve your action objective. Some people call this step the close. It is the logical next step in a series of events that lead to your securing the business. It generally involves detail work to finalize your arrangements.

Based on our Best Practices study of top-achieving salespeople, top achievers report spending 17 percent of their time at this stage of the sales call. They spend less time here than even in the opening. This tells us that if you invest the first 83 percent of your sales time wisely—probing, listening, and presenting—you ...