Top five ways businesses can increase their close rate

Businesses spend a lot of time and energy generating leads, but that’s only the first step in the sales journey. Once the leads start coming through, how can you close the sale?

Closing a sale is crucial to the growth and success of your business, no matter what level you are at. To increase your sales conversion businesses need to start spending more time on their business — rather than time in the business.

Here are the top five ways businesses can increase their close rate.

How to increase your close rate

1. Understand your potential client’s motivations

   To sell your product or service to potential clients, you need to understand what motivates them to purchase. It is important that businesses invest their time in getting to know what their potential client’s needs, wants, challenges and motives are.

   Once you understand on a deeper level what these motivations are, you will be able to package your product or service as a solution to their problem. Companies are much more interested in how services and products can help their daily problems be resolved, rather than an average sales pitch.

2. Strip the friction from your sales process

   The entire sales process for your business from first outreach to closing should be taking under two months. To achieve this, business owners need to strip out the friction from their sales processes.

   Many businesses — whether small, medium and large business owners — have friction in the sales process that inhibits their business. This includes implementing pricing models all up front or requiring non-disclosure agreements from potential clients early in the process. A business’ goal should be to get people to make decisions quickly by removing any elements that slow that process down.

3. Optimise and hyper-personalise your communication

   Your organisation’s communications need to come down to the individual who you are speaking to. So, B2B businesses can create more meaningful connections with potential clients by hyper-personalising their communications accordingly. Hyper-personalisation takes personalised marketing to a whole new level and builds the foundations for a strong professional relationship. But how do you effectively do this?

   Your sales and marketing team can create specific, tailored offers to potential clients, to suit their exact needs and requirements. B2B buyers are already being inundated with generalised advertisements, marketing emails and offers every day. Taking that extra step to create custom content for an individual will grab their attention and interest in what you have to offer.

4. Don’t be afraid of giving too much upfront

   This is one of the biggest mistakes businesses make when it comes to sales. Far too many businesses don’t give enough information and expertise upfront; they feel if they give too much away, it is at a detriment to their business, when in fact the complete opposite is true.

   When you share your knowledge and the intricacies of your product or service, it will draw potential clients in. You can empower these clients and in turn build a strong relationship with them that sets the foundation for a great sale.

5. Always book in a follow-up meeting

   Always try to schedule the next follow-up call or meeting whilst you are on the phone (or face-to-face) with a prospect. This should occur regardless of whether the prospect wants you to send more information or says to get in touch in a few weeks. Failure to do so will often see your sales cycle taking longer that it should because you will invariably need to chase the person to get back in touch.

   Make sure you make a habit of doing this always, for every call, every time. Try to make sure you never end a call or a meeting without having a follow-up time and day locked in.