How can you get a customer to agree to use your product? Is there a proper “close”in pharmaceutical sales? Lorraine Willis from training solutions company, ACHIIVE, answers these questions and explains how you can ensure your sales calls always end in “Yes”.

A very high proportion of experienced sales people, when asked, feel that closing is the most difficult step of the sale – I have to disagree. Closing is the easiest step of the sale, so long as all the other steps have been conducted effectively. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done… So many sales representatives are focused on what they want to get out of the call rather than using simple techniques to engage with the customer, build a strong relationship and deliver what the customer needs and wants, safe in the knowledge that if they do this well then the sale is theirs and long-term business is assured.

Steps of the sale

There are hundreds of selling models and most companies and sales forces have their own way of approaching the theory, but in essence there are four key steps in each sale:

Step 1 Opening and building rapport

Step 2 Exploring the customers needs, wants and emotional drivers

Step 3 Presenting your product/service and providing customer benefits to match the needs uncovered in step 3

Step 4 Closing the sale, gaining commitment from the customer to specific action.

Why do people buy?

So often in pharmaceutical selling the representative resorts to a “tell sell”, a one way diatribe of product features and spurious clinical research findings in the vain hope that the customer will be convinced by what is being said and demonstrated.Various reasons are given for this: lack of time, how they have been trained to “detail” the product and pressure from managers to deliver key messages word for word. A customer will only buy if there is something in the product proposition for them, i.e. it solves their problems better than anything else, it makes them look and feel good and the sales person has made the whole process easy for them to change their behaviour. Remember to tune into the right wavelength: WI FM – What’s In it For Me?

What is closing?

The dictionary defines closing as:“to bring together, to unite, to agree, to end.” In selling, it is all these things, it denotes the positive end of the sale, it is the point at which you have the customer’s real commitment to your product or service, it demonstrates to the customer that they have bought and it should be the easiest part of the sale.

The secret of closing is not knowing how to close but when to close. Experienced salespeople often fail to close.They do this because they do not know where they are in the sale or the adoption pathway and want to avoid getting a “No”. By closing, you are asking the customer to make a decision, so if you are at all uncertain as to whether the customer has bought and is committed to your product, this can be tricky.A valuable technique to use here is a trial close.

Trial close

A trial close asks a customer not for a decision but for an opinion, a view, a feeling about what they have heard and discussed so far. If you are using trial closes successfully you will know when your customer is ready to buy. It may be early in the sale or much later.Always close the sale once you know the customer is ready to buy, otherwise you may “buy back” your own product! The more often you close at the appropriate point – the more successful you will be in selling and the more often you will get a “Yes”.

Sequential selling

Closing is perceived to be more difficult in pharmaceutical selling, simply because an order is not given or taken directly.This raises the question “is there actually a close in pharmaceutical selling?” What does “Yes” look like? Pharmaceutical sales are part of a sequential selling process where the customer first becomes aware of the product, then may try it on a clearly defined group of patients until becoming confident to use it as “second line” to their current therapy, moving on to “first line” as their confidence in the product increases. In time, with greater experience, the customer may even advocate the product’s usage to other health professionals. We call this the adoption pathway, a step-by-step process taking the customer from point A – no knowledge of the product, to point B – advocating the product.This process may consist of a few or many steps, depending on the product, customer and the market. However, each step along this pathway represents a “sale” with a clearly defined opening position and a clearly defined close. Learning to identify that “close” is the secret to successful pharmaceutical selling. The key to this is to decide where your customer is on the adoption pathway right now (A) and where you can realistically influence that customer to be by the end of your next sales call (B), then describe that change by setting a SMART objective to help you achieve that change. Because selling pharmaceuticals is definitely not a “one off sale,” it is so important that we truly understand the power of long-term business relationships built on mutual respect and trust, both of which underlie the success of the sequential sell. If you have planned and prepared your sales call appropriately, taken every step of the sale carefully and been customer-focused throughout, then you will soon see that closing is the easiest step of the sale and you will be hearing “Yes” from your customers more often.

Helpful Reminders

Here are four key things to remember when getting to “Yes”:

1.WI FM – “What’s In it For Me?”

• This is the favourite and only wavelength your customer listens to
• Make sure you really know why they are buying
• Remind them why they are buying and how this will solve their problems and make them feel good
• Only talk to them about how your product or service will help them.

2. Just ASK for the business

• You have identified your clients’ needs, wants and emotional drivers
• You have presented a consultative solution appropriate to their needs
• You have earned the right to ask them to buy and commit to your recommended solution…so ask!

3. Stop Selling!

• Your customer knows what they want
• They asked you to provide it and you did
• The more you talk the more they think you are not done providing the solution
• Stop talking and let them decide.

4. Close with Confidence

• Closing is about confidence
• If your customer feels you have confidence in your solution, they will have confidence in you
• Confidence comes from preparation and knowing where you are on the adoption pathway and, more importantly, where you want to get to
• Let them know what they have bought by discussing and agreeing an action plan.