If you've chosen a career in sales, you may have developed a good technique for getting the attention of potential customers, but how many sales are you actually closing? If you believe you could be doing better, the problem may not be in your approach. It may be in the way you lead your customers toward that closing. One of these strategies may work better for you and help ensure your prospects are committing to the sale.

Apply Pressure to Commit

One of the most reliable ways to secure a sale is to put on the pressure to compel your prospect to make a decision on the spot. While providing them with information and letting them go home to think about it may seem like a good way to forge a relationship, it will almost always cost you the sale. Once they walk off the lot or out of the store, you'll likely not hear from them again. You can forge a more positive relationship later, once you've made the sale. For now, however, you'll have more luck by getting your prospect to commit to the sale. If you're offering some kind of incentive, make sure the prospect knows the deal is only good during that one visit. Even if you know this isn't true, this will help you apply pressure to commit.

Focus on the Game-Changers

It's easy to get overzealous and start listing all of the features of a specific product or model, but this can overwhelm a prospective customer. A better strategy is to talk to the prospect and find out what features are more important to them. Once you get a better feel for what they want out of the purchase, you'll be better prepared to cater to their specific needs. This can even help you deliver a more personalized sales approach. For instance, if you're trying to sell a car to a young couple with children, pointing out child-safety features of a specific model may bring you closer to making the sale.

Help Prospects Solve Their Problems

New entrepreneurs focus their businesses on solving problems instead of directly trying to push a sale. This tactic can work for sales professionals as well. Whether you're selling luxury vehicles or covered RV storage units, your goal should be to solve a problem in a unique way. If you can show your prospects why they need your product, they'll be less likely to walk away from the sale. If you can relate your product to the prospect's personal circumstances and make them understand that this specific product is ideal for solving their problem, you're far more likely to make the sale. The most important aspect of succeeding with this strategy is to convince your prospect that no other product will solve their problem as efficiently as your product.

If All Else Fails...

Suppose you've tried these strategies and your own tactics, but the prospect is still reluctant to commit. The first thing you have to realize is that they're still thinking about all you've said, proven by the fact that they haven't left yet. In these circumstances, the price may be the one factor keeping your prospect from becoming a customer. Instead of losing that sale altogether, offer them a different model at a lower cost. This is the time to go into the cheaper model's features because you want them to feel as though they're getting a deal. The prospect will weigh the features against the lower price on this second model, which is often enough to get them to commit to the sale.

Especially in hard economic times, getting people to buy a product is difficult, but it's not impossible. The important thing to remember is that they're looking for a value on something they need to buy anyway. If you can address these two issues in a way that makes your product seem like the ideal answer, you'll get yourself closer to closing the sale.