Try this exercise. It will immediately help you become more effective closing sales.

1) List your biggest closing obstacles on a sheet of paper or in an Excel Spreadsheet.

2) Next, review the criteria for each of the four bases in Baseline Selling.  If you don’t have the book handy you can find them here.

3) Next, identify where in the baseball diamond each of your closing issues SHOULD have been dealt with.

4) Recognize that these issues are not closing issues at all. This clears the way for you to easily and effectively use the Inoffensive Close.

Yesterday, 50 salespeople gave me their biggest closing obstacles – about 25 – when we combined them all. Then I asked them to identify the specific base paths where the closing obstacles should have been dealt with. Closing takes place at home plate and sure enough, all 25 of those closing obstacles actually should have been dealt with either between 1st and 2nd base or between 2nd and 3rd base.

The moral of the story is you haven’t even earned the right to close until there are no issues that would prevent you from getting the business. That’s the Baseline Selling philosophy. Introduce the usual issues early while uncovering your prospect’s compelling reasons for doing business. These issues, in the context of their problems, will be handled by your prospects while you develop your S.O.B. Quality!

Refer to Baseline Selling for advanced techniques to introduce these issues to your prospects at the appropriate time, more on S.O.B. Quality and the four bases of success.