Hey, guys this is Steli Efti with Close.io. Sometimes you have to take the deal away to
make it more desirable and close it. Here's the thing I see sales people do all the time.
They get more and more invested into a deal. At first they don't care that much about it
but at some point they start falling in love with the idea of closing this big important
deal, whatever it is, and they invest more and more of themselves and their time into
the deal. And the more time they invest the more invested they get. And eventually it's
really hard for the salesperson to let go of that deal.
What happens is that in the negotiation typically towards the final end of it the customer or
the prospect especially when they are a buyer with experience and an experienced negotiator
they will start bringing up all these issues. They will start bringing up all these details.
They will start bringing up things they've never brought up before.
Here's how most sales people respond. Some get frustrated and just let the deal die and
they're just like defeated. And others, they push. My brothers and sisters, I love sales
peoples’ push. I love when you hustle hard. I love when you fight for the deal. There's
great passion, great pride and honor in fighting to make a deal happen.
And being on the phone and jumping up and down and fighting as hard as you can to close
that deal. But here’s the problem that happens many, many times is the sales person's going
to start pushing and the prospect is going to start pushing back. And then the sales
person keeps pushing, and pushing, and pushing, and pushing. And eventually he or she either
loses the deal or loses themselves to the deal.
Makes compromises that are bad business. Gives in on things that are bad business. Makes
promises that are very bad business and they turn the deal that could have been great into
a shitty deal. And it’s all because they were too obsessed to close the deal to step
back and take it away from the prospect. Here's what I mean by that. And here's an
example of that. At final stage of the call the prospect goes, well, but we need this
integration, that integration. The sales person goes, well, we typically don't do it but if
you close the deal today with me I we’ll get my engineering and IT team to make this
special integrations for you and we'll make it happen. Like, let's get started. We'll
do this for you for free. We'll do this for you although we don't usually do it.
The prospect goes, well, that's great. But you know the other issue that we have is that
really don't like that we don't have to pay this price for this amount of users. We think
that this competitor offers this and this pricing seems it would be better for us.
And the sales person goes, listen, if you do a deal right now with me I'll give you,
I'll go down a little bit further on my deal. I'll meet you half way. Let's just make this
happen. Come on, my man. Alright, I'll give you the price you want. I'll go very close
to it. The prospect goes, well, that's awesome. But
you know another problem that I'm really concerned about is that you guys, what if you don't
stick around? You're early stage start up. Will you really be able to support us and
give us the service that we need? The sales person goes, we’ll give you amazing services
and I promise you I'm going to be available for you 24/7 giving you support and service.
I'll do anything for you. And the conversation goes on and on and on.
And the sales person keeps promising and promising and promising things, and making this a completely
unprofitable and insane deal in the process. Besides that, it makes you seem desperate.
See there's a fine difference between being decisive and being desperate.
Decisive is somebody that says, I'm going to let you off the hook. This deal is happening.
We both know this is the right product. So every day we waste we waste money. And I don't
like to waste money. I know you don't too. And let me know if somebody in this relationship
that has a lot more experience in making this stuff, I've helped hundreds of companies implement
and adopt this kind of software I know we're ready and you need to go right now. Let's
do it. All the other details we'll figure it out later. That's being decisive.
The thing that I was doing prior, the guy that was promising 24/7 support and was giving
better prices and was offering integration for free and all that craziness- that's desperation.
At some point when you find yourself in a deal pushing and pushing and pushing, and
the other side keep raising new concerns and new issues and new problems, you need to step
back and you need to take the deal away. You need to risk the deal to make it. You need
to risk the close to close. You need to tell them. Alright, let's stop
right here. I get that you have all these concerns. I know that we're going to be able
to deliver and make you successful just like what's happened with all these other companies
and our customers. Today is the day. You have to make a decision. If at this point you are
not ready I totally respect that. You can take all the time in the world but I will
have to focus my energy and attention on the next call which is in about ten minutes, which
is with somebody that's willing and ready to move forward.
Let's use this ten minutes to make a decision and move something forward, right? We can
figure out all the details later. Don't worry about that. Are you ready to move forward?
Are you convinced we're the best solution? Well, yes, but I still have these concerns
that are really important. I hear you and I respect that. If you made the decision that
we are the right solution you buy today and we'll figure out all the details later. And
we don't you can always leave. And I promise you once you adopt this solution and implement
it there's going to be an array, a number of new questions and issues and challenges
that you've never thought about that are going to come up.
And I promise you that over the next year or two or three years there's going to constantly
be new things that are going be coming up. So this is not about us checking off a list
because that list will keep growing just as your business grows and our product grows
and becomes better. What this is about is to decide today. Is this the right product
for you and are we the right partner? Am I the right partner? Do you trust and believe
that we'll going to do anything and everything to make you successful? If you do, let's go.
Let's go baby, let's make this happen. Let's make a decision together right now. And if
you can't, I have to jump on another call. And this is a hard thing to say to people.
This might seem harsh or arrogant but it's important. I’m friendly. I'm fighting for
this deal but I'm also telling you that I'm ready to go and talk to somebody that's ready
to make a decision. Now, I'm not going to chase you forever. If this negotiation goes
on in email, you could say in the email, listen, we both know that this is the right deal.
Let's move forward. We can figure out all details later.
If we can't today, I am forced to take you off my list of prospects that I keep investing
time because we have so much demand right now that I have to focus on some customers
that are already at the point that they want to move forward.
I think that we make you a great deal. A lot of times you know what's crazy? I've been
in negotiations back and forth. Just recently a few days ago where the prospect was saying,
no, if you cannot give me this and this kind of price we can't buy it. And I told them,
here's the best deal I can give you. And I gave them a price that was way worse than
what they asked me for. And then they replied and say, that's not going to work for us.
We need a much better deal. You know what my reply was? Here's the best
deal I can give you. I just copy and paste of the email I gave them before, the exact
same email. Copy and paste it. I was not rude, I was not negative. I was just very determined
but also very clearly ready to lose the deal. I just said, here's the best I can offer you.
Put in the price and said I hope we can make this happen. Let's go.
You know what happened next? They bought. Happens all the time. They tell you we can't
move forward except X, Y and Z. You tell them, I can give you A, B and C which is what I
promised you before. They go, we need X, Y and Z. And you say A, B C is what I'm going
to give you. A, B, C is awesome, let's do it. And they'll go, okay, let's do it.
And people here in the office go, this is crazy. But the point is you have to risk the
deal once in a while. And you have to take it away especially in bigger negotiations.
At some point you have to tell them it is the best I can do. I can't come back to my
team- what you're asking me to do is impossible. I know if I bring this back to my team they'll
say no. So I could do what I promised to do. Let's do it.
Well, no. If you can't give me these extra things I'm not going to buy.
Alright, I hope you change your mind. You know, sleep over it for a night and tomorrow
you decide if you want to move forward we're excited, if not I wish you the best of luck.
It sounds hard, huh. Sounds scary. You're risking the big deal. Well, nobody said sales
is easy. Nobody says life is supposed to not be scary. You have to take risks and be ballsy
once in a while metaphorically speaking to get the deal done. Once in a while, you have
to tell the prospect hey, I'm taking this deal away from you.
And we all know this from being children that when somebody takes something away and says,
this is not for you, right? This is not for you, you can't touch this. What's your next
response, right? You want it, right? Taking things away make them more desirable,
more scarce. And once in a while you have to take the deal away from the customer and
say, hey if you can't buy under these circumstances you can't have it anymore. And you'll see
the buyer's going to lean in. The prospect's going to lean in. And many times they're going
to be ready to buy. So, next time when you find yourself fighting
for a deal I applaud you. I think you're awesome. Fight for the deal. Be passionate, be determined,
give them everything. But don’t cross the line to desperation. And at some point once
you give and you give and you give it's time to stop and take away, and let the magic of
human psychology may close the deal for you and use something finesse, some elegance versus
pure force and power all the time. Alright, I hope this was useful. Shoot me
an email steli@close.io. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get all the sales hacks
and sales strategies and make sure that you hustle hard every single day. Now, go out
there and get ‘em.