To be good at closing a sale does not require you to be manipulative or pushy. If you want to be a better closer, you simply need to make sure you are asking the right questions. In this video, which is a clip from a webinar that we hosted on questions that you can ask when you are closing a sale.

Trial Closing Questions
Becoming a better closer can involve making small changes that actually occur well before you are closing a sale. The small changes that are being referred to are asking trial closing questions throughout every step of the sales process.

Trial closing questions are sales questions that check in with the prospect to see what they are thinking. These questions don’t directly close the prospect to move forward and are more focused on gathering information on how the prospect is feeling toward everything being discussed.

Here are some examples of good trial closing questions:

What do you think about what we have discussed so far?
Is this what you were hoping to see here today?
Is this something that you could see your employees using?

Soft Closing Questions
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, you don’t have to be pushy when you are closing a sale. What can be more effective in B2B sales is soft closing the prospect as this is more in line with consultative selling and will help you to create more rapport by displaying you more as an advisor than a salesperson.

Here are some examples of soft closing questions:

What do you want to do next?
When would you like to meet again?
Is this something that you want to continue to discuss?

An important thing with implementing soft closing questions is that you need to execute well in other areas before you can take such a soft approach. For example, if you don’t do a good job of communicating the value you offer, finding pain that the prospect is experiencing that you can fix, qualifying the prospect, and building interest, you may have to be a little more firm when you try to close the sale.

Hard Closing Questions
If you do want to be a bit more direct and firm in how you try to close a sale, you can ask some of these questions:

Are you ready to move forward to the next step in the process?
What would you need to be able to make a commitment to move forward?
If you had everything that you want, are you prepared to move forward?
If we were able to give you what you are asking for, would you be able to move forward with the purchase?
When are you going to make your final decision?
(If delaying the decision for a period of time – X months) OK, but do you mind if I ask if there will be a change or something different at that time that will make that a better time to look at moving forward?
Is there anything that is preventing you from being able to move forward with this purchase?

 

SalesScripter will provide you with questions and tools to help you with closing a sale.

Also, Read How to be a Better Closer