Seven Sales Techniques You Should Master to Close More Deals in 2024!

As we stride into a new year, 2023 provided a stark lesson for B2B businesses: the indispensable necessity for their sales representatives to acquire and master proper sales techniques.

Let’s make this resoundingly clear:

There exist specific sales techniques that EVERY representative should be well-versed in and apply during each sales call. Alas, a significant number of sales professionals I encounter in today’s field lack this essential knowledge.

“Selling” doesn’t merely entail discovering the perfect cadence, crafting a compelling email, or orchestrating a flawless social media post.

“Selling” encompasses the ability to engage a prospect in meaningful dialogue, posing pertinent questions that, based on their responses, heighten the likelihood of advancing the prospect through the sales pipeline.

To consistently achieve this at a proficient level, employing the right sales techniques in the correct sequence becomes imperative.

Sales Techniques… What Are They?

In essence, a “technique” refers to:

“a way of carrying out a particular task, especially the execution or performance of an artistic work or a scientific procedure. A skill or ability in a particular field.”

For instance:

One crucial step in the sales process necessitates reps adequately qualifying a prospect concerning their “role” in the decision-making process.

Three distinct categories of sales representatives typically emerge in handling this:

ONE: The representative who presumes they are the decision-maker solely based on the prospect’s title. This approach, adopted by most sales reps, often leads to failure. How many times have you assumed someone was the decision-maker due to their title, only to hear them say, “I need to check with someone else” when you’re about to seal the deal? This situation could have been avoided if the sales rep had learned the appropriate technique to qualify the prospect before launching into a presentation.

TWO: Sales reps who inquire, “Who else is involved in the decision-making process?” and proceed if the prospect confirms their decision-making authority. But let me ask you this: have you experienced the prospect later claiming they need to consult with someone else when it’s time to close the deal? Are they lying or telling the truth? You wouldn’t be in this situation if you us used what the third type of sales rep does (SEE BELOW)

THREE: The third type of rep capitalizes the most for their company (and themselves) by employing what I term the “FAST-FORWARD” sales technique.

What exactly is the “fast-forward” sales technique?

The “fast-forward” sales technique functions as follows:

The prospect is contacted and agrees to answer a few questions.

Recognition of a problem is acknowledged, and the prospect expresses a desire to resolve it, agreeing to explore potential solutions.

Before initiating the demo or presentation, sales reps inquire, “Aside from yourself, who else is involved in the decision-making process?”

The prospect claims, “It’s my decision.”

Implementing the fast-forward technique taught in the SalesBuzz online course, the sales rep says, “Imagine for a moment that you end up liking what we have to offer, and you decide you want to move forward with it… what happens next? How does the purchasing process work on your end?”

The prospect responds, “If I like it, I’ll need my boss’s final sign-off.”

The sales rep discerns that the prospect isn’t the ultimate decision-maker, despite earlier claims.

Consequently, the sales rep comprehends the necessity to pose additional questions before proceeding with the demo or presentation.

This example underscores the potency of employing appropriate sales techniques at the right juncture during a sales call. It’s the key to closing deals within shorter timeframes.

Imagine if the sales rep hadn’t learned when and how to leverage this sales technique…

It might result in a scenario where:

A sales rep conducts the demo, logs it in their pipeline, boasts to their sales manager about a “hot lead,” only to have the prospect vanish. Unbeknownst to the rep, the real decision-maker vetoed the deal, leaving the prospect hesitant to convey this information. Consequently, the rep relentlessly pursues the prospect to no avail.

Granted, the deal “might” have materialized even without the fast-forward technique, but how many more deals could have closed sooner had the rep uncovered the decision-making chain and devised strategies for scenarios involving multiple decision-makers?

And that’s just one among several crucial sales techniques every sales rep should master to optimize their earnings:

1. Openers (enticing prospects to accept your call)
2. Gatekeepers (increasing the chances of getting your call accepted, not rejected)
3. Problem recognition (identifying issues the prospect may not even have recognized)
4. Identifying decision-making roles
5. Timeframe for issue resolution
6. Ideal solutions
7. Pricing

I continue to apply the same sales techniques I learned back in 1994. Why? Because they work!

Disregard the notion that “sales have evolved.”

The fundamentals persist as best practices for a reason.

My projection for 2024 is that companies, particularly small businesses with 1 to 999 employees, will trim their sales staff and retain only the top performers.

The savings accrued from eliminating the bottom 33% will (or should) be redirected toward marketing initiatives to bolster inbound leads.

The emphasis will revolve around enhancing the capabilities of promising sales reps, elevating them to elite status, and achieving more with less in 2024.

Genuine growth materializes when sales reps are thoroughly trained in navigating sales calls consistently, regardless of whether the call is warm, cold, inbound, or outbound.

Make it a great year.