Double Your Closing Rate

The key to successfully checking in with your prospect is to ask tie downs that engage your prospect and elicit some kind of response. You must ask a question that is more open-ended and sometimes even a little assumptive.

Tie downs give you a lot of valuable feedback as to where your prospect or client is in terms of the sales process, but they also allow you to control the call, develop a yes momentum, and they give you an idea of how close – or far away – you are from the deal.

Use the following tie downs during your sales presentation and watch your confidence, control, and closing rate double!

20 Tie Downs to Close the Deal

1. “Does that make sense?”
2. “Do you agree with that?”
3. “I’m sure you can see how that would work for you, right?”
4. “That’s powerful, isn’t it?”
5. “Do we have an agreement?”
6. “Does this help?”
7. “Can we get this started for you?”
8. “Wouldn’t you?”
9. “And who wouldn’t want that?”
10. “Isn’t that right?”
11. “Make sense?”
12. “Do you see what I mean?”
13. “Understand?”
14. “You’re with me on this, right?”
15. “I can’t think of a better way, can you?”
16. “Right?”
17. “Good solution, right?”
18. “Agreed?”
19. “Sound reasonable?”
20. “Got it?”

I think you’d agree that by using tie downs you’ll get a lot more information and direction from your prospects during a close, won’t you? (a shameless tie down, wasn’t it?).

Try any of these and see for yourself how much easier it is to close when you have the valuable feedback tie downs provide you with.

Using Worn Out Tie Downs

You’ve probably heard that nothing identifies you more as a salesperson than using the worn-out greeting, “How are you today?”, right?

Prospects know immediately who is calling and they can’t wait to get you off the phone. You know what else identifies you as a salesperson? Using worn out tie downs.

There are many other tie downs that are so obviously a sales technique that using them makes you sound like a used car salesman.

Besides being old and annoying, these kinds of tie downs are also closed ending statements that get your prospects saying ‘yes’ or ‘sure’ and nothing else. And that’s what you learn about your prospect’s buying motives – nothing.

A Better Way to Use Tie Downs

First of all, remember what your purpose is in using tie downs: to take the pulse of your prospect to see if you’re losing them or if they’re with you, or if they’re bored or engaged, or if they have a question, etc.

In other words, because you’re selling over the phone and don’t have the visual cues you do when you’re in person, you must use some kind of check in statement to see how the conversation is going.

The key to successfully checking in with your prospect is to ask a tie down that engages your prospect and elicits some kind of response. What that means is that you must ask a question that is more open-ended and sometimes even a little assumptive.

It’s easy to change the worn-out tie downs you may be using now.

Here are some examples:

Instead of using, “That’s a nice feature, isn’t it?” you can ask:

“This will save you a lot of time over how you’re doing that now.  Just out of curiosity, what are some of the things you might do with that extra time?”

Instead of saying, “Would that make you feel better?” you can ask:

“You’ll save money using our new processor, and how would that go over with the boss?”

Instead of saying, “Are you with me so far?” you can ask:

“You know, I’ve shared a lot of information with you so far, do you mind if I ask what you think  about it?”

Instead of saying, “And you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” you can ask:

“Everybody obviously likes to save money (do less work, save time, etc.), how have you been able to save in this area this year?”

Brainstorm and Remember to Listen

Again, the point is to ask questions (tie downs) that encourage your prospects to reveal information that you can then learn something from.

If you’re listening carefully enough (remember to hit your MUTE button), then you’ll be surprised by the buying motives and hints to the sale you’ll hear.

By the way, if you’re a sales manager, this is a great exercise for a meeting. Get all your reps together and make a list of the worn out tie downs they are using now, and then brainstorm new ones that are open ended and that engage people. Your team will not only make more sales, but prospects will enjoy talking to them as well.

One of the biggest drawbacks inside sales reps have to deal with is not being able to see the visual cues of their prospects and clients. Working on the phone requires superior listening skills, and you can develop them much quicker if you get in the habit of using tie downs.

Download our FREE guide Seven Steps to Building Effective Prospecting Sequences for techniques to take your prospecting campaigns to the next level and close more deals.