Whiteboard Selling: Empowering Sales Through Visuals

Chapter 16

Closing Whiteboards

Because only one thing counts in this life: GET THEM TO SIGN ON THE LINE WHICH IS DOTTED.… Money's out there. You pick it up, it's yours. You don't, I got no sympathy for you. You wanna go out on those sits tonight and close, CLOSE. It's yours. If not you're gonna be shining my shoes.

—Blake (Alec Baldwin), Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992

A–B–C. A for always, B for be, C for closing; always be closing—always be closing. Those famous lines reverberate through the heads of many a salesperson whose manager has sent them the video of that famous scene for which Alec Baldwin was Oscar-nominated. The point of sharing the quote is not that a Closing Whiteboard must always be used, or that it should be used as a hammer. It is simply a reminder that there comes a point in the sales process where you have to bring closure and ask for the business.

The Closing Whiteboard is often used in front of the ultimate economic decision maker, and it's designed to encapsulate the most salient points of previously delivered whiteboards used with lower-level champions or influencers. Necessary due diligence (reference checking, etc.), competitive differentiation in your favor, and preliminary financial negotiations should have already occurred prior to using this whiteboard. It's also important to note that this whiteboard may not be necessary, especially if you have been selling to the economic buyer during earlier stages in the sales process.

There are many approaches to closing ...