Closing the sale is perhaps the most important aspect in business. When there’s a sale, there’s revenue for your business. Many will says that the operation, human resource, product development is important. Yes, they are. But without sales, all the above can’t function. Or put it this way, without sales there’s no need for all the above.

So as a business owner, sales is a skill you must learn. Sales skill is so important especially to a business owner. As the owner, you don’t only sell to your customers, you sell to everybody. Don’t you have to sell to your staff, your team, suppliers? And of course your customers as well!

When I first started doing sales, frankly speaking, I sucks. I thought as long as I’m passionate about the products, I should be doing well. (That’s what all the sales books say right?) But really I was lousy in sales.

Most of the time I was babbling non-stop. I never gave any chance for the customers to air their view. I will share so much about the benefit of the product that I forgot to enroll them. In fact, I didn’t know what is “enrolling” then.

Because of me babbling all the way, I didn’t bother to find out what the customers’ needs. It’s about me trying so hard to promote the product, thinking that everybody should own this product. I go crazy why people can walk away without buying that super duper product that can benefit them.

I didn’t know how to handle objection thrown at me. When customers said “no”, I responded, but in a way that didn’t sound too convincing. Sometimes I may even become too defensive over the product, which didn’t help in closing either. And I was unaware.

I didn’t know how to close a sale. No doubt I was full of passion, but I don’t have the skill to close the sale. Fortunately it didn’t take me a long time to discover that I’m suck. This awareness allowed me to start learning about sales from books, seminars and mentors.

I learn about the sales process, different techniques etc. That’s when my sales started to improve. One of the sales guru I learned from is Brian Tracy. I learned a lot from CD, 21 Great Ways to Become a Sales Superstar. Currently Brian Tracy is offering this CD for free.

One of the lessons I’ve learned is to ask a closing question when you need to close. Many sales people doesn’t know how to ask that question. There are many ways to ask that closing question. You can also ask them in many different situation.

The distinction is not to ask too early. The timing of asking is so important. Asking too early will result in objection. Asking too late means pissing off your customers. As a customer myself, sometimes I’m so ready to buy, but the salesperson continue to go on and on without closing me.

When a customer become impatient, try to rush you through your presentation. It means two things. You are a boring salesperson, they are rushing for time, or they are already sold before you can finish.

Take note you have to sense your customer if they are ready for that closing question. This sensing part comes with experience. It can’t be taught, you just have to practice till you get it.

One tip here is to ask the closing question after you handle the objection. If a customer bother to throw an objection to you, it means they may be interested. If you handle that objection well, there is a high chance they will buy. So close them at that moment.

It works for me most of the time. After I handle their objection, I will follow by one or two questions. “Do I answer your question?” They will usually nod their head. Then I will ask, “Which dates is suitable for you?” This is the closing question.

I’m not saying it’s always works, but it increase my closing ratio.

At some cases, closing question may not be closing the sales. It may be moving the sales process to the next level or getting a small commitment from the customer.

For example, in one of the sales presentation I was doing, the clients requested to integrate our training to their corporate theme. I took the opportunity to ask them to take a small step by asking them to send their corporate theme to us.

I get them to make a small commitment by taking some form of action. If they are willing to send, it means they are willing to work with us. Think about this, if you screw up in your presentation, they wouldn’t even bother to send you anything.

Sales is an important part of business. Closing is a very important part in sales. Learn to be effective in sales, and your income will be limitless. Take this opportunity to learn from Brian Tracy, get his FREE CD, 21 Great Ways to Become a Sales Superstar

I gave a talk years ago, and a student asked me, “What do you think makes a successful entrepreneur?” I was wondering, isn’t it obvious? On a second thought, I realized that the audience are not entrepreneurs but want to be entrepreneurs. They didn’t move forward to become one because of fear. The fear of whether they can make it as an entrepreneur, the fear of do they possess the traits to be an successful entrepreneur.

With that in mind, I understand why that question came out. It was like the Universe present that question for everyone. The Universe wants me to support these people, so I will.

Overcoming fear

Being an entrepreneur doesn’t mean you don’t have fear, in fact you do and have a lot of it. Fear is always there in everyone of us. The difference is the ability to act in spite of fear. In other words having the courage to act.

Entrepreneurs face tremendous amount of fear everyday. Why is that so? Imagine an entrepreneur journey is like a journey into the unknown jungle. The jungle is filled with uncertainties at every corner. Wild, ferocious animals may lurk at you suddenly. You may encounter the man eating plants leaving not even your bones. You may walked right into the muddy swamp that eats you up completely.

With dangers around, entrepreneurs took that leap of faith, trusting that all will be well, only to find out that it’s not as bad as it seems. There are no man eating plants, only some animals attacked once in a while. But it’s nothing too big that he can’t handle.

When he walked past that jungle, he reached a beautiful waterfall, with clear water splashing down. He took off his shirt, dip into the cool water. The reward of overcoming fear is unlimited. Satisfaction from the business, financial rewards, time freedom and the full control of your life.

By having the courage to overcome fear, does that mean it will be all smooth sailing? Of course not. Sometimes you will miss the results that you desire. What can we do then? It comes to our second point – taking responsibility.

Take Responsibility

Responsibility means taking accountability about the results you created. This is extremely difficult to practice since we were taught to lay blame from young. Even in our society now, when something terrible happened, the government or the people will find a scape goat. They will not rest until someone is “hanged”.

On the journey of entrepreneurship, you will make mistakes. You will fall, at times fall badly. It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s your response to the fall that can kills you. When you trip over a rock, you can go blaming the person who placed the rock there, or you can learn to start looking out for rocks in case you trip again.

When you business didn’t do well, take responsibility for the result. Going around blaming your customers, the economy, the government is not going to help turn your business around. Instead ask “How can I improve the result?”

Entrepreneurship is a journey. A friend told me building a business is a marathon, not a sprint. What do we need to run a marathon? Y

es, perseverance. That’s our third traits.

Perseverance

Winston Churchill famous speech with only nine words. He said, “Never, never, never, never, never, never, never give up!” This is so true in any business. There will be good time in your business, there will also be bad time in your business. Question is, can you hold on during the bad time.

I’ve been in business since 2003. I’ve gone through good and bad times in my business. Honestly, there are times where I wanted to let it go. Fortunately for me, the competitive character in me don’t allow me to give up. I changed strategy, wait, hold on, it didn’t turn out good. I changed again, wait again, hold on again, it didn’t turn out well again. I do this process over and over again until one day, results changed.

Most of the time it’s just one more bit of effort, one extra call, one extra door, one extra proposal. You may be just one step away from finding success.

Let just stop at three traits for now. There are so many other traits of a successful entrepreneur but if I go on, it will become a book. May these three traits alone can support you in your future endeavor.