The seven steps of a closing meeting that wins MSP deals: set up the meeting for success, set the agenda, initiate the pain train, why us, sell the solution, the money talk, and ask for the order. Most MSP salespeople can't close because they are not clear on why they are in the room. You are there for one reason: to close the sale. Selling is coaching someone to make a buying decision that is actually good for them, and if you genuinely believe you can help, there is no reason to hold back. Most salespeople struggle with the closing meeting more than any other part of the sales process.
Early on in my career, I lucked into sales.
I was working for minimum wage as an administrative assistant for a company called Country Fresh Foods that did in-home sales of frozen meats. The branch office I worked at just outside of Philadelphia had three outside sales closers and a room of telemarketers who would grind out two four-hour shifts a day, cold-calling people out of the phone book to schedule a sales appointment for one of our reps to come to their home and sell them six to 12 months' worth of frozen meat.
If successful, they then sold them a freezer. After all, where the heck are you going to store a year's worth of meat?
Crazy.
My big break came when the manager who ran the telemarketing engine was no longer able to make it to work, because he was arrested and jailed for tax evasion. Long story short, they asked me to babysit the room until they could find his replacement. That led me to actually start making calls, managing the group and taking an interest in sales.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Everyone's gone soft
I'm very grateful I learned in the "Glengarry Glen Ross" environment that I did.
During the '80s, the model of using a pure cold-calling telemarketing engine to book appointments for an outside sales force was a lot more prevalent than it is today, because there was no social media, digital ads or e-mail. That's why outside salespeople were called OUTSIDE salespeople. They had to leave the cave to find a prospect to talk to.
Back then, hard-core closers were revered and aspired to. Those were the days of Tom Hopkins, Zig, Joe Girard, Brian Tracy and even Tony Robbins, who would teach people HOW TO CLOSE.
Today, everyone's gone soft, and you hear sales trainers coming out with a lot of B.S. about "no-close" selling.
Which brings me to the FIRST and most important fundamental to embrace and practice if you truly want to succeed in sales:
You are there to CLOSE the deal.
Timid salespeople have skinny kids
Zig used to sum it up best when he said, "Timid salespeople have skinny kids."
Rough? Too aggressive? Not in my book. More like accurate.
Zig made his way in sales as a door-to-door pots-and-pans rep. He used to say that when he went out on a sales meeting, "I have that prospect's pots and pans in the trunk of my car and they have MY money in their pockets, and I'm there to make the exchange."
THAT'S exactly how you should think too. Except think IT services, not pots and pans.
So, my first BIG lesson in how to close a sale is this: CLARITY about what you're there to do.
You have to be crystal clear that you are in front of a prospect for one reason and one reason only: to CLOSE THE SALE. There's absolutely no other reason to talk to, meet with or prepare proposals for prospects who aren't going to buy something.
If, after going through the entire process of qualification, discovery, assessing, proposing and presenting, a prospect doesn't buy, they've wasted your time. Worse yet, you've wasted THEIR time, because you were unsuccessful in helping them.
What selling actually is
That's because I believe this is the definition of selling:
Coaching someone to make a buying decision that is actually GOOD for them.
Let me put this another way. What does a great business coach do?
For starters, they are determined to get their client to WIN and succeed in some important area of their life or business. If you hired me to personally coach you in business, I'm going to help you clarify your goals, push you a bit if I feel you're sandbagging, rein you in a bit if I feel you're setting unrealistic or unreasonable goals. Then I'm going to unabashedly tap into your emotions to get you the "juice" you need to drive forward and "sell" you on taking action so you can actually achieve your goals.
That's SALES.
A great coach must be an expert about the game, or their field of work. They have to fully understand the problems and challenges their client will face and the consequences of certain actions, or lack of actions, and not allow their client to go down the wrong path or take steps that will harm them, hold them back or delay their goals.
A great coach has to truly care about their client as well.
If you are honest about your desire to serve and protect your clients AND you're certain you can help them, then there's no reason to hold back in closing them on buying what you're recommending to them.
Where most salespeople actually fall apart
The full sales process has several stages, starting with qualifying the prospect you're talking to. But the one I've found most people struggle with is the closing meeting itself, what I call the Prescribe and Close meeting.
That's where you walk away with a signed deal, or with an "I'll think it over" or, worse, a "No."
The 7 steps of a closing meeting
Here are the seven components necessary to successfully conduct the closing meeting:
- Set up the meeting for success (pre-meeting prep)
- Set the agenda
- Initiate the Pain Train
- Why us?
- Sell the solution
- The money talk
- Ask for the order
In the actual sales meeting, you've technically got six steps, since the first, setting up the meeting for success, is more about what you do in advance to ensure you don't end up derailed before you even begin.
One of the ways to prepare is to make sure you know everything you need to know before going in to prescribe. If you don't know those things, your chances of closing the deal are suppressed, and the likelihood that you'll end up with a "let me get back to you" or a "maybe" goes up. Your chances of wasting time with an unqualified prospect are also high.
Your homework
Check your current qualification and discovery meeting process, and make sure you leave those meetings knowing what you need to know to prescribe.
If you can't say with confidence what the prospect's problems are, what they want, what it's costing them, who makes the decision and when, you are not ready for the closing meeting. And no amount of skill in the room will make up for walking in blind.
If you want your team trained on the entire closing meeting, step by step, that is exactly what my MSP sales training is built for.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can't most MSP salespeople close?
Because they are not clear on why they are in the room. You are there for one reason, to close the sale. There is no other reason to meet with or prepare proposals for prospects who are not going to buy. A lot of modern sales training has gone soft on this with ideas like "no-close" selling, and salespeople who absorb it walk out of meetings with maybes instead of signed deals.
What is the real definition of selling?
Coaching someone to make a buying decision that is actually good for them. Like a great business coach, a great salesperson clarifies the client's goals, understands the problems and consequences better than the client does, cares about the outcome, and does not let them take a path that will harm them or hold them back. If you are certain you can help, there is no reason to hold back in closing.
What are the steps of a closing meeting?
Seven: set up the meeting for success, set the agenda, initiate the pain train, why us, sell the solution, the money talk, and ask for the order. The first step happens before you arrive, so in the meeting itself there are technically six. The closing meeting is the part of the sales process most salespeople struggle with.
Is it wrong to be aggressive about closing?
Not if you are genuinely helping. Zig Ziglar's line was that timid salespeople have skinny kids. If you are honest about your desire to serve and protect your clients and you are certain you can help them, holding back does not protect the prospect. It just means you failed to help them, and both of you wasted your time.
Does "no-close" selling work?
In my view it is largely B.S. The idea that you can avoid closing and simply let the prospect decide sounds gentle, but it leaves buyers without direction. Prospects do not know how to buy. If you go through qualification, discovery, assessment and a proposal and then fail to close, you have wasted their time as well as yours.
What should I know before a closing meeting?
Enough to prescribe with confidence. By the end of your qualification and discovery meetings you should understand the prospect's problems, what they want, what those problems are costing them, who makes the decision and when. If you walk into the closing meeting without that, your odds drop, the chance of a "let me get back to you" rises, and you are more likely to be wasting time on someone who is not qualified.