We recently held a webinar on “How to Make Closing Sales Prospects Easy” and one of the topics that we discussed were some common misperceptions that we can have when thinking about salespeople and closing. As a first step to try to get better at closing, I think it is good to dismiss some of these common myths and that is what we discuss in this short video.

You are either born a salesperson or you are not
There are a lot of people that hold the belief that people are born to be salespeople. That they are born with some set of characteristics and skills and those will make them a good salesperson. And for those that are not born with these qualities will struggle to sell.

I personally do not agree with this. I believe there are some people that are born with leadership qualities and just naturally fall into situations where people follow them and this can be an asset in some types of sales where building strong relationships is important in more relationship sales situations.

But in most sales situations where you have a product or service to sell, I believe that selling is a skill and that someone can learn and develop these skills through work and effort.

You have to have a certain personality to close
Related to the previous myth is one that people believe that you need to have a certain personality to close. That you have to be outgoing or gregarious in order to close sales. And that if you aren’t born with this type of personality, you either have to try to alter who you are or you will not be successful.

I also disagree with this myth as I don’t think that you have to have some particular type of personality in order to close. I explain why in the full webinar recording.

You have to be pushy to close
Digging deeper into the last myth is the belief that you have to be charming, pushy, persuasive, or aggressive in order to close sales.

I disagree that someone needs to have these personality traits or some other type of personality in order to be a good closer. I explain my case for that in the full webinar but the logic is based on that if you do most of the right things before you reach the point where it is time to close, you should not have to be charming, pushy, persuasive, or aggressive in order to close.

Closing is the hardest step of the sales process
Many salespeople believe the hardest step of the sales process is the close. I believe that if you do the right things before you close, closing is actually the easiest step, and sometimes deals close themselves.

It is when you do not do the right things in the sales process when closing sales is difficult and I explain all of this in the webinar “How to Make Closing Sales Prospects Easy”.

Aslo, Read Selling to Executives is Like Trying to Talk to a Pretty Girl