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6) Cancellation Prevention (step five of the sales cycle)
Also referred to as “Solidifying the Sale”
If you’ve been in sales before and have ever received ‘cancellations’ or what we refer to as ‘back-outs,’ then you know how frustrating these events can be! But I bet you didn’t know there are things you can do in your sale to help prevent back-outs from occurring or even eliminating them all together!
Cancellations and why they occur
There can be an infinite number of reasons why your client may decide to cancel his order, but most of these reasons trigger something we call ‘buyers remorse.’ Buyer’s remorse is the feeling of anxiety or guilt a client starts to feel after the commitment to purchase has been made. I’m sure everyone’s felt some type of buyer’s remorse from purchasing something as incidental as a new pair of shoes, to the major whopper purchases such as a new car or home. Buyer’s remorse is a natural event that will often occur- unless steps were taken in your sales experience to help ‘solidify’ your decision to make the purchase (and thus prevent buyer’s
remorse)!
Solidifying your sale (a CHEAP insurance policy!)
Solidifying your sale is extremely easy and only takes a few minutes. Here’s how you do it! After you discuss and work through all the payment information and order details, you then ask your prospect to share with you a couple reasons WHY he or she decided to purchase your product or service. Don’t feel shy about asking this question, you can phrase it however you’d like, but the IMPORTANT part is this: you must ask the client this question, and the LET him answer!
Here’s a an example of how you would ask this question: “Jim, I’m really glad you decided to go with us on the XYZ! I always like to ask my new customers what made them decide to actually order from me! What would you say were the top 2 or 3 reasons you decided to order the XYZ? (THEN STOP TALKIKNG AND LET THE CLIENT ANSWER! It is extremely important that you don’t “lead” the client into answering any certain way. The dead air you hear is the sound of your client solidifying himself or herself! They WILL finally answer!)
Now let’s say Jim replies, “Well, I guess I like your warranty. It seems to really protect us in the long-haul so we don’t have any down-time. And the other reason I guess is because you already work with so many of my colleges. I always like to work with companies that have a good track record.”
So now you solidified Jim. Let’s suppose he’s out at dinner with his boss the next night when he excitedly tells his boss how he just purchased the new XYZ product. The boss replies, “Oh-no, I wish you’d talked to me first. I have a contact over at a different company that might be able to save us some money.” Now, if you hadn’t solidified your sale, you may be headed for trouble in the form of a back-out. But the psychology of solidifying the sale is this: Whatever the 2 or 3 reasons Jim responded back to you as his ‘self-solidifying’ reasons to purchase will be the first 2 or 3 ‘defense statements’ he’ll give to his boss. “Well Boss, don’t worry, I researched everything a lot, and I found that the company I went with provides the best warranty and service. In fact, they also work with Terry over at ABC Company, Mike and Smith and Associates, and Betty Brown and TRA and Company. And you know if those folks are happy with the XYZ, we should be a lot right too!”
Now the boss can still intervene, but chances are, with this back-up from Jim, the boss is probably going to worry more about the steak he just ordered versus putting in the time and energy to ‘save the day’ when Jim already proved he did his homework and went with a reliable supplier! If Jim had sat there with a blank stare on his face, he may have had buyer’s remorse set in, and Jim plus the boss together may have started strategizing to make the ‘bad news call’ to you tomorrow!
Don’t FORGET to solidify your sale!
For some reason, I’ve watched sales rep after sales rep forget or skip the step of solidifying the sale. And sure, there are NO guarantees in life. But I know personally that after repeatedly taking a few extra minutes to solidify the sale, my cancellations were only a FRACTION of other sales person’s back-out percentages. And you know what? The better you become at selling, the more deals you’ll close. And if you don’t get your cancellations under control, you’re going to automatically have an increase in back-outs! So REMEMBER- take the extra few minutes to implement a ‘cheap insurance policy’ to avoid back-outs!
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