{"id":237,"date":"2007-12-17T19:45:53","date_gmt":"2007-12-17T19:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wensmedia.com\/\/salesarchive\/permalink\/2007\/12\/17\/144553.html"},"modified":"2007-12-17T19:45:53","modified_gmt":"2007-12-17T19:45:53","slug":"alternate-choice-closes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/uncategorized\/alternate-choice-closes-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternate Choice Closes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: center\"><strong><em><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">&ldquo;To close the tough sale today you must establish yourself, not the buyer, as the expert&rdquo;&nbsp; <\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: right\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial\">-James Schlinkert, CEO Olivetti Corporation-<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Old school training courses often extolled the virtues of various closes, and suggested the A.B.C&rsquo;s of closing were &lsquo;Always Be Closing.&rsquo;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Today&rsquo;s intelligent buyer does not want to be sold or closed, they want to buy. And most want to buy from someone they trust to make the best possible recommendations for them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">One of the preferred closes was the alternate choice close. Basically, you assumed you had the sale, and asked the buyer to choose from one of two or more alternative proposals.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">The problem with this approach was two-fold:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol style=\"margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt\" type=\"1\">\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">It makes the buyer, not the seller, the expert. Roy Williams points out most business owners are &ldquo;uniquely unqualified&rdquo; to handle their own advertising.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">It creates the impression you don&rsquo;t care what they buy, you only care about making the sale.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Professionals, like lawyers, doctors or accountants, consider alternatives for you, but maintain their credibility by recommending which alternative they consider to be the best for you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">If you do not have complete confidence the buyer will appreciate the benefits in your proposal, you may take alternative proposals as a back up. But you should always clearly state which proposal you believe will work best for the client to maintain your position as a consultant rather than risk being positioned as a peddler who just wants the sale. &nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial\">Clients will always respect sales people who have the courage and conviction to make strong recommendations. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &ldquo;To close the tough sale today you must establish yourself, not the buyer, as the expert&rdquo;&nbsp; -James Schlinkert, CEO Olivetti Corporation- Old school training courses often extolled the virtues of various closes, and suggested the A.B.C&rsquo;s of closing were &lsquo;Always Be Closing.&rsquo; Today&rsquo;s intelligent buyer does not want to be sold or closed, they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}