Hustling between prospecting to discovery calls to booking meetings with leads is an inefficient process. The better way is to have a strategy that streamlines your sales process. Here's a guide on how to close a sales deal effectively—13 tips for closing more sales deals.
13 Actionable Tips for Closing Sales Deals
If you're wondering, 'What is the best way to close a sale?' the most accurate answer would be to follow a defined strategy. Here are the tips that will act as a guide rail during your sales operations:
1. Leverage Social Selling to Expand Influence
Nowadays, it’s more important than ever to emphasize social selling and influence. Your social media presence is a way to engage with prospects, gain credibility, and explore different industry perspectives.
But how exactly?
From blog writing and sharing LinkedIn articles to live Facebook streams and Instagram posts, an SDR uses social media to be more successful in the long run.
A great start would be to share more posts from thought leaders in the field. This is one of the best ways to increase the chances of closing more sales deals since it will increase brand recall.
💡 Fireflies Tip
Program bots to pull from RSS feeds will let you stay active on social media and gain leads.
2. Listen for Key Signals on Qualification Calls
"Most people think “selling” is the same as “talking”. But the most effective salespeople know that listening is the most important part of their job." - Roy Bartell
Active listening is vital to an SDR's success. Sales is one of the most important use cases of the Fireflies app. Here is an interesting fact that we found out through a basic study:
According to a survey, top sales reps listen 57% of the time they're on a call. The idea is to get inside the other person’s head. Focus on the key signals in a conversation to better engage with prospects. An active listener learns everything about the stories people tell.
Vibhanshu Dixit
Highlight and tie everything back to the priorities of the conversation. As a sales rep, your priorities include meeting quota, closing the deal, getting commission or promotions, not getting rejected, and sending follows up.
That’s not the case with your prospect. Figure out what their day-to-day worries are—that's a key step of how to close sales effectively.
3. Tailor the Narrative to Your Customer Persona
SDRs are notorious for falling into the trap of memorized spiels. Once they’ve gotten their prospect to open up, they fail to relate and jump straight into discussing pricing. An opportunity to uniquely connect on a more personable level becomes a monotonous pitch.
Strong narratives influence buyer’s decisions. Adapt your approach based on the key signals you honed in on — your pitch should be based on the conversation you had with the prospect.
All outstanding products have a compelling story that connects data and technology with the client’s needs. In other words, one of the prominent tips for closing more sales is to be a storyteller and tailor the narrative to your prospect.
4. Remain Focused on the Outcome
It’s easy to become discouraged in a competitive, cutthroat environment like sales. Successful SDRs are able to learn from rejection and focus their energies on the next call—they know how to handle objections sales. It’s important to be consistent and persistent, even when you don’t get a response the first time.
💡 Fireflies Tip
Be careful not to push too hard when the timing is not right.
5. Utilize Video Prospecting to Stand Out
Successful SDRs leverage video prospecting using videos in sales. There are many tools to use to create short and engaging clips (no more than two minutes) that help you:
- Practice your elevator pitch: Introduce yourself, deliver value (with a quick tip), and ask to schedule a call-
- Mini Sales Demos: Showcase specific product features that tie back to the prospect’s ROI. Familiarize yourself with the ins and outs of your product and connect to your client’s unique needs.
The idea isn’t to be an Oscar-worthy videographer or produce a super technical video. Your aim should be being comfortable presenting on screen so that it translates in person. Practice, after all, makes perfect.
💡 Fireflies Tip
Our CEO at Fireflies.ai uses Loom for this purpose.
6. Ensure Every Touchpoint is Personalized
To close sales effectively, first qualify, define and demonstrate your product and services. Then pitch how it fits with your prospects needs, organize your discovery questions in this order:
Goals -> Timeline -> Plan -> Challenges
‣ What are Your Goals?
‣ What is your Timeline?
‣ What is your plan to achieve your goals?
‣ What are your Challenges?
The framework is a reworking of HubSpot’s GPCT that provides an opportunity to assess your prospect’s true needs by structuring the conversation in an actionable manner. In sales, is it most important to know exactly what a client wants?
This tip for closing more deals uses customized outreach so you can encourage your prospect to talk about where they are and where they want to be and increase your chance of closing the sales deal.
7. Leave Clear Voicemails with a Clear Value Proposition
Clear voicemails directly convey who you are and the purpose of the call. Targeted voicemails increase your probability of getting a callback. Don’t waste your time and their time with pleasantries. Get to the point and spend your time illustrating why you can help them.
Vibhanshu Dixit
A clear voicemail with a clear value proposition includes the 5Ws:
- Who you are
- What company you work for
- When the meeting is taking place
- Where the meeting is taking place (if necessary)
- Why you are meeting (briefly talk about your product)
8. Book More Live Events
Live events are beneficial to sales reps for multiple reasons. For one, live events enable you to familiarize yourself with the latest products. Doing this leads to connecting with prospective leads and eventually building your network.
9. Share Knowledge by Leveraging What’s Working with Your Team
No man is an island — It’s important to identify what’s working with your team to promote rich and open communication and situational awareness for more sales.
Though indirect, this is one of the most important tips for closing more sales deals: Share your best practices with knowledge management and team wikis. You perform best when you are in sync with the entire team and management.
Be open and receptive to your managers and fellow SDRs when starting off on your first day and throughout your career. Ask them to share their team wiki with you.
Knowledge management provides SDRs with a set of tools, techniques, methods, attitudes, and ways of working to make and improve connections.
10. Streamline your Workflow with Sales Automation Tools
An important step of how to close a sales deal is using automation in daily activities. AI softwares are designed to minimize your tasks so you can focus on creative tasks.
Many apps integrate themselves into your call flow and generate more sales with features like one-click dialing, inbound call routing, list prioritization, and call monitoring.
PowerDialer is a great example of this call software, efficiently allowing SDRs to focus on making connections.
11. Keep Refining your Qualification Script
Sales reps should spend their time identifying the most qualified prospect for their product. A successful SDR utilizes sales qualification frameworks to qualify prospects.
Here are the most popular frameworks for qualification:
- BANT: Budget, Authority, Needs, and Time.
- MEDDIC: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion.
- SPIN: Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff.
12. Research Well before the First Interaction
Before talking to your prospect, do your research by following a sales discovery call structure. The research will help you identify your ideal customer profile, answer the ‘duh’ questions you might otherwise ask your prospect, prevent false evidence, and allows you to come off as genuine and helpful.
Optimize your sales call script to your client’s background (education, product awareness, attitude) through online research (social media profile, blogs, publications).
By tweaking your sales demo based on your client’s background through prior online research, you let them know that you’ve done your homework and are serious about helping them.
This is the best tip for closing a sales deal because you are empathizing with your customer by fostering a relationship. Data tracking or analyzing metrics such as who’s opened your email or who has a fast response time will help you focus where to direct your efforts.
Vibhanshu Dixit
You’ll know you’re ready to meet the prospect when you’re able to answer their 6W’s. Learn more about how the 6W’s can help you learn more about your buyer here.
💡 Fireflies Tip
Be aware of your client’s location. Tailoring your conversation to your prospect’s unique culture or city can help you stand out from the rest.
13. Keep your CRM Data Updated
According to Salesforce, 30% of rep time is spent on data entry and admin. CRMs help you make the most of your timing, stay on top of new leads, and be dedicated to following up in a timely manner.
An easy-to-use CRM can help you make the most of your timing, stay on top of new leads, and be dedicated to following up in a timely manner.
With an automated meeting transcription platform, managing every single conversation, getting ai meeting notes, and data synced to your CRM makes life a lot easier. Fireflies.ai helps you focus on what is really important - closing a sales deal and growing the business.
Keep Refining Sales Skills
Sales require reps to evolve and keep up with the latest tools and tactics. When a major part of repetitive work is automated, you'll have more time to perform real interaction. You can spend more time talking to prospects or focusing on selling activities like emails and calls instead of letting data fall through the cracks.
Avantika Mishra
Image illustrations by Storyset
