Classic sales dogma says this: ABC. Always be closing.
If you’re still following that acronym, please stop. Now. You’re ruining sales for the rest of us.
Replace it with this: ABG. Always be giving.
ABG Versus ABC
Here are four critical differences between ABG and ABC:
Always be giving starts by providing important, valuable information with your prospects. Information they would pay for, but you provide free to build a trusting, professional relationship. Always be closing pushes and pushes and pushes for a deal, destroying the buyer-seller relationship.
Always be giving infuses sales calls with helpful content that prospects look forward to receiving. Imagine that, a prospect welcoming your sales efforts because they’re consistently helpful and informative. Always be closing irritates and alienates buyers, eventually burning every lead on your list.
Always be giving qualifies prospects and improves the quality of your pipeline. As prospects consume the valuable information you’re providing, they start moving through the sales process without even realizing it. Always be closing teaches prospects to say “no” at the very start of the sales process, resisting any attempts to move further in it.
And finally, always be giving makes sales fun and rewarding. Your sales week involves genuinely offering help to people with their pressing business needs. Always be closing sets you up as an adversary to the buyer, someone you must conquer and kill. Not fun.
Is Closing Dead?
Given the dynamics described above, is closing dead? No, it’s just different.
Buyers are more sophisticated than ever before and won’t be hoodwinked or pressured into a sale. If you try, they’ll go down the street (or to the Internet).
But buyers are still human beings, and human beings need the occasional poke and prod to help them do what’s in their best interest. So once you’ve established a trusting relationship using ABG, leverage that relationship to close a deal through legitimate methods like multiple pricing options, impending deadlines, usage scenarios, and limited trials periods.
Use these closing techniques not as manipulation, but, again, as ways to help prospects do what’s in their best interest. And, because you’ve built the platform of a trusting relationship by giving and giving, that platform can hold the weight of your request.
Giving first, then receiving. What a concept! It’s a revolutionary approach to sales that the best sales professionals are using to hit their number every week, every month, every quarter, every year.
