It’s a proven fact that soft closers get more sales than hard closers. If you’re wondering why, consider your own experiences with pushy salespeople. Most people out there have had at least one uncomfortable experience with someone more interested in making the sale than helping the customer.
In addition to having a higher sales closing rate, soft closers are also more likely to turn prospects into repeat customers.
Those salespeople who employ soft closing techniques are able to better align themselves and their product or service with the customer’s needs and display a natural inclination towards a mutually beneficial working relationship.
Soft Closes vs Hard Closes
A hard sell or hard close is an assertive, direct approach to getting your product or service sold. These kinds of sales pitches get straight to the point and are simply there to make the deal.
A soft close is selling in a much more subtle way, by using quiet and artful persuasion. This technique focuses on relationship-building and trust between the potential client and the seller.
Although both of these approaches have their place in sales, their overall results differ a little.
Hard Sales Closing Techniques Negatively Correlated to Results
Hard selling is generally known as the “classic” way of selling. While hard sellers have the potential to get decent results, studies indicate that soft closers get more sales than hard closers.
These kinds of closes put the customer in a high-pressure decision-making situation. They’re simply too assertive for many prospects, and even if the customer makes the deal it’s unlikely they will return for a second time.
Hard closing techniques like the now-or-never, the assumptive, the alternate-choice, or the 3-yes close may work for some customers. But they’re known as assertive techniques that have a lower overall sales conversion rate.
Customers want to buy, but don’t want to be sold to. Soft closes give them that, and have a higher chance of turning customers into long-term clients.
Techniques that work better in today’s selling world revolve around your long-term value proposition. Soft sales closing techniques are solution-heavy and light on the pressure.
A soft close gently persuades the prospect that this is best for their business, and in the end, leaves them feeling as though they’ve made the choice themselves without being “sold to”. The technique may require a few more meetings to close, but it’s more likely to keep the customer satisfied and feeling in control. This, in turn, will bring in repeat business.
Hard closes tend to stir fear in prospects, while soft closes offer solutions to their pain points.
Why Is a Soft Close More Successful Today?
Fear-Based vs Solution-Based Sales
The modern consumer buys solutions more than products. Their decisions are swayed more by feelings than facts. The modern salesperson, therefore, needs to change their selling mindset and adapt from old school techniques to keep up with the expectations of the modern customer.
Prospects in today’s world respond to solution-based selling far better than fear-based selling. They want to be offered an active resolution to their pain points, not sold a once-off product or service.
Hard selling is assertive to the point of being aggressive. It tends to make use of strategies like enforcing deadlines, removing benefits, and creating worry or fear in the customer at what may happen if they don’t take the offer now.
Soft sales closing techniques are more subtle. They rely on opening your prospect’s mind to what you’re offering. It’s a more passive than active way of selling, and the salesperson gently guides the prospect into understanding the solutions that their product or service provides.
Understanding the mindset of your consumer in today’s world is essential to be able to produce real results and turn prospects into lifetime culients.
Effective Strategies for Closing Sales
Soft closes may sound like a more roundabout way of getting the deal, but there are some very effective techniques that can be used to get the close.
In order to improve success rates, salespeople need to learn newer, more effective techniques for closing sales and, just as importantly, generating repeat business.
These are three useful strategies to incorporate into your soft closes to help the customer make the decision. They’re passive and non-threatening, but can make a lot of difference in your sales closing success.
- Urgency Detection & Financial Justification
Impress upon the customer at the beginning of the sales cycle how delaying a decision to close the deal will ultimately cost the customer money.
As an example,a proposed computer system lease might save a company $35,000 per month in expenses and cost only $20,000 a month. That equals $15,000 in profit each month, and every business day your customer delays making the deal, they’re losing around $750.
If there is no urgency present, you don’t have a qualified prospect. If there are no compelling financial benefits, you won’t have a motivated prospect.
Without these two aspects, urgency and financial benefits, attempts at closing a sale will often fail. Incorporating them into your proposal will automatically increase your chance of closing the deal.
These can be used in both hard and soft sells, but they’re highly effective in soft closes.
- Stakeholder Assessment & Contact
Do you know who personally loses if this deal is delayed? Consider how this purchase (or delay thereof) may affect a VP of Finance’s bonus. If the bonus is based on net profit, they may personally lose out on bonus dollars if this deal isn’t closed.
Once you know who will be affected by the decision, get in touch with them. If the person you’re selling to has personal motivation to make the deal, your soft close will be relatively easy.
If you can’t meet with the person you wish, find a way to bring personal motivation into the meeting. It may be that their commission will be affected, or perhaps their chance of a promotion.
You could even bring up the possible losses that their superior may suffer as a means of eliciting that motivation to close the deal. Avoiding the personal losses of others may be a personal reason for some.
- Objection Prevention
Objections typically serve to delay the sale and lower sales closing rates. This is particularly true when they occur late in the sales selling process.
The most successful salespeople have well-rehearsed responses to the 10 or 20 most common objections they receive.
In addition to these specific responses, the best sales pros actively anticipate potential objections and answer them before they even arise in the meeting.
In certain (but unusual) cases, seasoned salespeople still receive ludicrous objections despite having anticipated queries and rehearsed responses. Being prepared for the ridiculous can be difficult, but there are specific techniques that can be used to minimize or even prevent these from occurring.
Preparation is essential when it comes to objections, and most can be headed off easily if planned for. Sales closing rates improve significantly if objections are handled this way.
Conclusion
It’s essential to remember that asking for the order is always important, whether using soft or hard closing techniques.
The manner of asking is the only difference. Whether you favor soft closes or hard closes, these specific techniques have significant weight in the sales process.
Paired with soft closes, though, you should be prepared to have your sales closing rate improve noticeably.
It’s worth remembering that not only do soft closers get more sales than hard closers, but that in turn leads to long-term clients who continue to come back for the value offered.