How are you doing in meeting your 2013 goal?

Here are 5 steps you can take right now to close more sales faster:

1. Follow-up.

The single biggest reason more sales aren’t closed is salespeople give up and fail to follow through.

You may have made two calls and think nothing is going to come of it.

Try again.  We’ve all seen studies that show the importance of following up, and yet so few people actually do it.

2. Sell to the customer’s outcome.

It’s not about your product features; it’s about the outcomes the customer wants. Make sure every comment you make and every question you ask are geared around the customer’s desired outcome.

3. Do a referral blitz to grab customers you can close quickly.

Make it a habit to stay in touch with every customer you’ve ever done business with and even those to whom you weren’t successful selling.  Tap into them for referrals. Leverage your personality, and while you’re at it, pass referrals along to them.

4. Follow up with every old lead, regardless of how old it might be.

Surprising to me is the number of salespeople who never do this.  If there was even the slightest bit of interest at one point, you never know when it might come back even stronger.    Reach out to them, stay in touch with them and nurture them to become great customers of yours.

5. Leverage your personality and your confidence.

Nothing is more effective than you and your own level of confidence and personality.  Let it come through and let people see you as being confident. Approach each opportunity with the expectation of success.  People don’t want to do business with losers. They want to associate with people they see as winners.

Opportunities are unlimited.

All we have to do is approach each day with the expectation succeeding.   Let’s have fun making the last quarter of 2013 a huge success, and in so doing, we’ll propel ourselves forward for a huge 2014.

Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.