For many years in selling, it was quite common to hear, “The sale begins when the customer says no.” We know today, however, that the sale begins when the customer says yes.
When the customer finally agrees to buy your product or service, that is where the real work begins. Now you must redouble your efforts to make sure that this sale comes together and stays together.
Many people take a sale almost all of the way to closing and then lose it at the last minute. Why is this? Based on interviews with thousands of customers, we find that many customers experience a motivation dip immediately after agreeing to buy something. Sometimes this is called buyer’s remorse. After the purchase, the customer begins to think of all the difficulties, problems, and uncertainties involved in using the new product or service. It is at this point that the customer needs the greatest amount of care and attention by the sales professional. This is the moment when the customer will begin to lose heart and question her decision. This is why, at the moment that your customer decides to proceed, you must redouble your efforts to make sure you follow through with the sale.
The very best strategy in selling is to do something immediately to reassure the customer that she has made a good decision. This can be a phone call, a visit, an additional exercise in customer satisfaction or customer delight, or something else. But the more important the sale, the more important it is that you reinforce it immediately after the customer has made the decision to proceed.
Over the course of my career, I have often worked very hard to make a sale. When the customer would finally agree to proceed, I would breathe a great sigh of relief and turn my attention to other customers, or go home for the week- end. Then when I called the customer back a few days later, the person would sometimes have changed his mind completely, and I was never able to resurrect the sale. It was only when I learned about the motivation dip that customers experience that I was able to guard against this happening. It was only when I followed through to the very end of the sale that my income in sales took off. Making the sale is not enough. It is much better to follow through to the final victory.
