9 Proven Hacks To Help You Close Sales Deals Faster

While folks doing outbound prospecting may beg to differ, a majority of salespeople say closing is the most challenging part of the sales process.

Sales tends to be a highly time-consuming process, and closing deals is no exception. For example, the most successful salespeople make 12 or more contact attempts during the sales cycle — performing almost 20% better than those stopping at eight.

As any seller knows, deal momentum is a precious and fickle thing in the sales process. On Monday, a sales deal is coasting along and seems like a lock; on Tuesday, the primary contact goes dark and doesn’t respond for months.

Of course, there’s no surefire way to close every sales deal in your pipeline. (Or it wouldn’t be sales!) Yet there are proven hacks which can, if done correctly, greatly improve the velocity and outcomes of your deal cycles. That is where these nine best sales closing techniques come into play.

9 Proven Hacks To Help You Close a Sales Deal

1. Be the Fastest Sales Rep to Respond

One of the most underrated – and, surprisingly, still underutilized – sales techniques is also one of the simplest: Reply fast. Really fast.

A Harvard Business Review study found that the average time it took a sales team to respond to potential leads was 48 hours.

48 hours? That’s a lot of time! It’s enough time for your prospect to research a competitor, book a demo, and even make a purchase decision. Aim for replies in 48 minutes, or better yet, 48 seconds – while you’re still top-of-mind for your prospect.

Creating a sense of urgency (by both replying quickly and offering time-bound deal terms) is one of the most tried and true sales techniques. That said, it’s all about finding the balance that your customer needs — you don’t want to rush them to seal the deal before you’ve identified pain points that your product solves.

2. Use Gifts To Minimize Meeting No-Shows

You’ve done it! You’ve booked a discovery call with your dream prospect. Now, the next step in making a deal is getting them to actually show up to your meeting.

There’s nothing worse for a sales rep than prepping for a meeting with a personalized sales pitch deck, only for the client to cancel at the last minute. Nor is it an uncommon occurrence. If you’re a decent-sized sales team, chances are that no-shows and last-minute cancellations are happening every day.

Preemptively sending a gift to thank your prospect or decision-maker for their time can cut no-show rates in half. A $5-10 gift may be one of the best investments you make.

One of the most common tactics is to send a small-value gift card to DoorDash or similar, with an invitation to order lunch or coffee on the house during the demo.

With Goody, you can send dozens of major gift cards – or do something more creative! For example, you could send a single bag of super-fresh Devoción coffee – and tell your prospect that they could also swap for tea if they prefer.

3. Ask. More. Questions.

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it’s the lack of curiosity that kills most sales deals.

When closing a sale, you should always be listening more than you’re talking — for a few reasons. For one, it makes your client feel like they are being seen and heard, which makes them feel more cared for as opposed to just a robotic business partner.

More importantly, though, asking closing questions lets you uncover buyer pain points, doubts, and needs that you can then use to your advantage when locking in a sale and trying to handle objections. By asking questions, you ensure that you and the buyer are on the same page.

4. Be (Pleasantly) Persistent

Your clients have busy schedules, and you’re naturally not going to be at the top of their priority list on any given day. That’s why you need to be persistent so that you’re always on their minds, without being so persistent that you annoy them or turn them off.

Being persistent doesn’t mean you’re constantly cold-calling prospects with new deals and offers until they give in. It’s more about developing a meaningful relationship and following the right sales tips as you go.

For example, if a deal has stalled and a client has gone dark after multiple touches, change your tack. Email them to compliment their company on a new product launch, customer story, or partnership. Shoot them a one-sentence email to wish them best of luck in the new quarter. Keep your outreach short, personalized, and friendly.

If you reach out to clients on a regular basis, even if it’s not related to your deal, they’ll remember the deal on the table and be more likely to close it when they’re ready. Pleasantly persistent follow-up is one of the keys to effective sales.

5. References Will Be Your Best Friend

Word of mouth continues to be one of the best ways to generate new sales, and when you can get friends to recommend your product or service to others, it’s basically a free method of advertising. Not only do people trust their friends’ opinions, but this gives you the opportunity to incentivize current clients to boost lead generation.

Many companies leave it there, and use referrals solely as a demand generation tactic. Few sales professionals realize how compelling and persuasive client references are during the closing process.

Develop a group of passionate clients who will sing your praises. Then, during your negotiations with your prospects, offer up your client references before they even ask. (“Would you like to speak with one of our clients? We have one who had a similar use case to yours, and found success.”)

Most prospects look at online testimonials, reviews or other sales collateral as relevant but highly biased. Whereas a 1:1 conversation with a real client can be an incredibly effective way to overcome that skepticism and doubt, and push a deal over the finish line.

6. Sent Thoughtful, Personalized Gifts

At its core, sales is all about relationships. So one of the best ways to close a contract today is by making your potential new client feel more like family or a friend rather than a sales lead. You can do this by getting them a thoughtful gift that shows you view them as a person, not just a number.

Although gifts cost money, it’s probably one of the highest-ROI investments you can make. Receiving a gift creates positive feelings and increased enthusiasm, as well as a deeper connection. You don’t need to give them something huge to make an impact. In fact, giving a thoughtful, meaningful gift is more psychologically valuable for both the giver and the receiver.

That said, you don’t want gifts to come off as transactional bribes. (“Here’s a gift so you’ll sign a contract with us.”)

Still, there are plenty of excuses to send a gift – and engender good feelings in your prospect’s mind – that feel ethical and thoughtful. For example, send a gift to thank them for attending a demo, that is to thank them for their time. Or, as mentioned above, send them a gift preemptively before they attend a call.

Goody lets you personally select gifts so you can tailor and craft them to perfectly suit your client. Putting in this extra effort shows that you truly care about your client and getting to know them while also helping your gift be more useful to them overall.

For example, if they mention they’re a sports fan, get them a New Era Baseball Cap for their favorite team. If you hear their dog barking on a call, send something for Fido. If they don’t love their gift, they can swap it out for something of equal or lesser value.

7. Get More Visual

Humans are visual creatures. If you’re pitching a software product, for example, saying how it will help your prospect may fleetingly capture their imagination – if you’re lucky.

Whereas showing how it will look in a custom visual will instantly make your prospect understand your product and the tangible way you can serve them.

It’s easy for sellers to forget just how much visuals matter. Yet in truth, in many sales decks, it’s the screenshots, previews, and mockups that count – not the bullet points, customer quotes, or feature overviews. Many sales reps will send a busy decision-maker a 40-slide deck, rather than a single screenshot showing how their solution will look. Yet it's the screenshot that might ultimately seal the deal.

In addition, taking the time to generate custom visuals, mocks or demos for your prospect shows that you took the time to personalize your presentation.

8. Generate Urgency

Generating a sense of urgency is one of the most important ways to close a sale sooner rather than later.

Yet the thing to remember is that your urgency doesn’t matter. Rather, how can you make your prospect feel urgency?

To do this, you need to clearly understand their pain. (Hence why asking more questions is so important, as mentioned above.)

What is this problem costing you each month? What happens if you don’t fix it? Why would you want to move forward this quarter, rather than later? What would be some of the objections to moving forward now?

By asking questions like these early in the sales process, you’ll understand (and even better, be able to quantify) the pain that your prospect is feeling. The more you can measure their pain points, the more you’ll be able to drive urgency to resolve them.

9. Conduct Yourself Confidently

When it comes to sales outcomes, it’s hard to overstate the importance of projecting confidence.

You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, and when you exude confidence throughout your interactions with your clients, you have a much better chance of cinching a deal. Confidence in sales means that your client will have more trust and faith in you to deliver on your word and follow through.

Being confident in sales also means that you’re capable of accepting “no” on both sides of the conversation. Not every prospective client is going to be a match for your business, so if it’s clear that you’re not getting anywhere, you want to be able to back away without affecting a healthy relationship.

How Goody Can Help

In this article, we mentioned a few moments where thoughtful gifts can help push deals over the finish line.

Other sales gifting platforms require expensive, enterprise-grade contracts – and are stuffed with generic, paint-by-numbers gift brands.

Goody is a different type of platform entirely. It’s free to sign up and send unlimited gifts right away. Our collection includes 300+ trendy brands that will make an impression in your prospects’ inboxes.

Plus, your clients can swap out their gifts for something else so they can freely choose different colors or sizes that work for them. And if they don’t love it, they can exchange their gift for something completely different of equal or lesser value, as almost 50% of recipients do.

All you need to send a gift is an email or phone number — no address is required. They’ll accept it or swap it out for an equally or lower-valued item. The last step is for the sales prospect to input their address. From there, their personalized gift will be sent their way.

It’s an all-in-one platform for effortlessly personal business gifting. Sign up for a Goody Business account for free today and access a $20 credit to send your first gift.

Sources:

Think Rejection Is the Hardest Part of Sales? Think Again | Inc

The Short Life of Online Sales Leads | HBR

The Mental Health Benefits of Giving and Receiving | The Jed Foundation