The Two Call Close
Is your in home selling system out of step? There is no such thing as a teachable two call close.
If you meet your prospect at their home to review the project, do a needs assessment for almost any home improvement project, then make an appointment to deliver a price or a proposal, these actions certainly represent a call. This format requires that you set up a second appointment to make your presentation, proposal and price. Thus the second or even the third time you visit your prospect, if it is then you present your price and ask for the order, this represents an attempt to close. And if you are fortunate enough to get an order, despite the fact that you have visited your prospects more than once, it represents a “one call close”. It’s not a matter of semantics. Good sales training requires that salespeople “ask for the order” and the time to do that is after you’ve made a strong presentation and sold the value of your proposal.
If your concept of the two call close presumes that if you do not get the order on the first call after presenting the price, you can come back at a later date and get it, this is a disastrous way to train salespeople. If they presume that leaving a price and relying on the customer to recall is valid, they will probably be in for great disappointment.
Arguably, there are companies with a price niche who rely on a “very soft sell” or “no sell” and presume that their low price will get the order. I have no argument with anyone who can make that work. Candidly, it doesn’t work for most sales organizations. Paradoxically, despite the fact that these companies place such a strong reliance on a very low price, their salespeople still lose business to someone with an even lower price.
None of the latter obviates the opportunity to rehash an unsold appointment or to regenerate interest with prospects who remain unsold. However, to presume that a second call sale is a prudent way to run a modern business is to obviate the principals of good sound selling.
Somehow the “one call close” got misinterpreted. It is frequently positioned as “hard sell”. Arguably on some occasions when the salesperson uses inappropriate tactics or relies on “big drops” or fanciful untruths to close the sale the mantle of “hard sell” may seem appropriate. However, no well-managed, customer satisfaction oriented company should have to be defensive about teaching salespeople that when they are in the presence of prospects and have followed the precepts of a positive sales methodology to ask for the order!
To learn more about a scientifically proven sales methodology that is having a dramatic impact on the home improvement industry, sign up to attend our complimentary seminar at the Remodeling Show.
