Selling Software: Closing The Deal - Introduction To Face-To-Face Selling Of Software
Author: Steve Kilner

In B2B situations, selling software face-to-face can get
complicated. Having a good sales process can improve your
results and lower your stress, allowing you to perform in a
more natural, powerful way. This article focuses on how to
go about closing the deal after you have discovered the
necessary information from the prospect.

For complex sales, such as with software, probably the
dumbest advice you could ever follow is the popular mantra,
"Always Be Closing." Closing the deal in software sales is
an art, requiring finesse and patience, but there's a clear
process you can follow. In Part 1 ("Selling Software:
Introduction to face-to-face selling of software - Set up
and Discovery") the process of discovering information
about your prospect was reviewed. Here in Part 2 we're
going to take that information and use it in a structured
way to do another discovery: how to close the deal. We
want the prospect to tell us how to close the deal.

In part 1 you should have discovered who all the decision
makers are. To close the deal you want to get them all
together in the same meeting. To prepare for the meeting
you should have developed very clear ideas of how your
software addresses each of their problems. You should be
thoroughly prepared to give quick, laser-like
demonstrations of those features. The structure of the
meeting is as follows:

Recap - Describe what you have discovered. Review the pain
points , why they are pain points, what the impact is on
the business in terms of unnecessary costs, lost revenue
opportunities, customer service problems, etc. Discuss
personal pain points for individuals in terms of overtime,
stress, turnover and so on. Describe what has been done in
the past to fix these problems. Recap what you have
learned about the budget they have allocated to fix the
problem. Describe what you have been told about their
decision making process. As you go through the recap, keep
getting consent that you have the complete and accurate
story. If not, get all the additional information you can.
(This will require that you get into "think on your feet"
mode.)

The Demo - Finally! But, do not do your normal canned
demo. As stated earlier, you should know by now how your
software addresses each of their pain points. Start the
demo by asking them which problem they would first like to
address. And get this idea firmly in your mind: you are
neither selling software nor doing a demo of software. You
are selling solutions and doing a demo of solutions.

Find out which problem they first want to examine. Don't
respond to this by going into a long explanation of how
your software is structured and all its features and so on,
do this: go right to the killer screen or report that
totally, visibly nails the problem. Don't explain how you
got there, just go there and show them right before their
eyes the screen or report that buries that problem once and
for all. They may wonder, and ask, how you got there.

At this point you offer them a choice - do they want to dig
a little deeper into how you got there, or do they want see
how you solve the next problem. You can go either way -
what you are doing is involving them in the demo and
learning more about how they think.

The Close - After you have reviewed your solutions and
satisfied their questions, it's time for the close. But
you're not going to close, they're going to close. You ask
the question, "On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to
sign up with us and get started?"

If they say 0-5, go negative reverse - you say, "maybe
you're just not really interested?" Or, "maybe you're
right - maybe we're not a good fit for you." Sometimes
they'll turn around and tell you why they are a good fit!

If they say 5-7 - you say, "let's look a little more in
depth - what do we need to do to move that up to a 10?"

If they say 8-9, you say, "what do we need to do to move
that up to a 10?"

If they say 10 - you say, "Great! What would you like me
to do now?" Help them if they don't know! (You would
prepare a contract and get their signature and set some
start dates.)

In conclusion, I think you can see that almost the entire
sales process is about discovering what's in your
prospect's mind. Sometimes they are too anxious or hurried
to want to give you the information you need, but that is
where you have to earn your money: make them tell you how
to close the deal.


About the Author:

Steve Kilner is a long-time software CEO and expert in the
sales and marketing of B2B software for small-medium
software companies. For tips and insights about sales
strategies, selling tactics, persuasion techniques, and
digital marketing technologies such as email, landing
pages, SEO, content publication, social media and more -
all for B2B software companies - visit Steve's blog or sign
up for his free newsletter at http://www.kilnermedia.com .