One of my early sales trainers said, “Gary, people hate to make decisions and that’s why we have to make them for them.”

He may have overstated it a bit, but the point is well taken.

Sometimes it’s called the ABC’s of Selling: Always Be Closing.

And this means constantly asking for an order, for the yes, for the signature on the dotted line.

As a seller, you may think that asking for approval is premature, that you must set into place a lot of precursory information, and sometimes this is the case.

If you want to sell a nuclear reactor, for instance, there are lots of steps that must be taken before you’ll get the final green light.

Still, you can establish your EXPECTATION that you’ll be chosen to provide whatever it is that you’re selling.

Example: When I placed my seminars at forty universities across the country, I never asked my contacts WHETHER they wanted to sponsor them. Within the first 30 seconds of our first conversation I did ask, “How would we go about offering this course at your university?”

I presumed that we’d be doing business together, and now it was simply a matter of how.

I made the decision for them, you could say. That’s closing a deal without explicitly asking for a yes or no, sometimes referred to as assumptive selling.

But if that approach isn’t available, you can and must be explicit. Here are three tips for effective closing:

(1) Keep It Simple, Stupid! Known as the KISS method, this means make your offer succinct and easily understood.

(2) Close early in the encounter. You can always back pedal and provide more information if you must.

(3) Close often. One close may not do it. Ask as many times at it takes to get a yes or to determine that the prospect is not close-able.

In future articles we’ll discuss the best language to use when closing.