Conditional Close, find what the customer really wants.

We talked elsewhere about the benefits, to the seller, of asking for the order and the way it drives out objections we might not know about. There other ways we can use closing as a technique, for handling objections, and for more closely defining requirements. One such technique is generally known as the conditional close. Another technique straight out of the sales professionals arsenal is known as the trial balloon.These two techniques are very closely related and the distinction between them doesn’t mean anything as long as we achieve the desired result. However a few minutes spent looking at examples of their use may help to illustrate the power of employing them in the right way.

Conditional Close is about focussing a conversation. Narrowing it down to the issues. It’s useful in two circumstances 1) objection handling and 2) qualification.

In “ Asking for the order is the most powerful thing the salesman can do.” we looked at objection handling from the perspective of finding out whether the objection is real. Conditional close is ideal in such circumstances When the buyer tells us “your price is too high”, our conditional close is “if we reduce the price will you give us the order?” In this case we’re using the “close” to find out whether price is really the issue. If it is we can support our price with explanations about scope, value and risk. If it isn’t we’ll go on to flush out the real objection. Please note carefully we only asked “if”, we didn’t say we would reduce the price.

Conditional close is also very powerful in Qualification – the process through which we decide whether can win the deal, and if so what we have to do to get the contract. In order to check our understanding of the prospects requirements we can reflect back to the buyer what we’ve learnt, asking “if we offer this will you give us the order”. We can employ the same technique to check if the buyer really has the authority he claims. “If we do this can YOU give us the order?” We can use a derivation of the concept to ask open questions, for example “who do we have to convince, if we’re to get the business?” or “is there anything else we can do, to win the business?”.

Trial Balloon is about opening up a conversation, perhaps to get around road blocks, or finding some common ground for negotiation. Trial balloon is about testing a hypothetical set of circumstances, exploring various possibilities. It’s ideal for the negotiation process we looked at in “Negotiation and Concession are different things”. For example, when the buyer is looking to reduce the price of a service contract we might ask “if we can reduce the price, will you be able to give us a longer contract?”.

When we’re closing and our request for an order is met with the response “we have to wait for the decision from the board”

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Tagged as: Business, Question, Sales, Sales Qualification, Trial balloon