I have been addicted to sales since I was selling replacement plans on rollerblades during my freshman year in college; luckily these days, the addiction has evolved to include marketing, so I’m not in “ABC mode” 24/7.
The idea of closing has been largely leveraged within the sales profession as the strategy/steps/language/motion used when wanting to ask for the order.
However, if you think about it, you’re closing the prospect’s on things throughout the entire sales cycle.
You’re closing the prospect on opening your email/Linkedin DM, replying to your message, jumping on a call, talking to their boss, etc.
I like to call these micro-closes. I visualize my sales motion as steps to a destination; the micro-close is done every few steps.
What is one item that all prospects want to see and understand as quickly as possible? Your product of course.
And how do we sales people make this happen?
Through your killer demo.
This demo is also known as your product tour and can be inserted at various steps in the funnel.
At the top of the funnel it’s in marketing’s territory is often at a minimum gated to capture email addresses.
This demo could be tied to a free trial, self-service product tier, or totally open so that any prospect can touch and feel your product before they talk to a sales rep.
Check out how Troops.Ai created a self-guided experience this using a product tour:
When the prospect decides to get in touch with sales your first close is on developing enough credibility and trust that the prospect will pay attention and adhere to to the agenda.
You might say something like:
“Jane, I know you’re 4 days into our trial and have experienced a few of our features.
Do you have any questions that I can answer around what you have seen so far?
I’d love to hear more about your current situation and how we can help, however would it be helpful for me to run through a quick demo before?
If this is something that you’d like to explore further we set some time aside at the end to discuss next steps.
Does that work for you?”
Let the prospect decide when and where discovery happens. You don’t have to force them into your process.
I also like to ask how they’re on time, this helps you gauge how much time you have so you don’t go too long.
As you can see, you and your products are micro-closing all the time.
In product-led the product closes the prospect on moving forward both in a self-guided or human assisted way.
If you’re an SDR you’re qualifying leads that come in from a product source like the demo or you’re embedding your demo in the outbound messaging .
You’re taking inbound PQLs and converting them into SQLs.
When doing outreach, you’re driving PQLs, then SQLs.
The SDR then hands off SQLs to the AE to close.
The AE will continue being product-led by using a more tailed demo that they control and can track engagement around when sent as a leave behind.
Each action by the AE is a micro-close to the next step while putting the product at the forefront of each interaction.
So the next time you’re getting about to execute a sales task ask yourself, what do I need to close the prospect on as a next step?
Photo by: Blake Wisz
