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Are you a salesperson? Do you use sales closing techniques to land a sale? If you answered yes to these questions you probably can recognize the following sales closing techniques, as popularized by Zig Ziglar:

• That price is ridiculous close
• The new decision close
• The alternate of choice close
• The persuasion close
• The three question close

Perhaps you’re using these sales closing techniques, yet your sales numbers really aren’t that good; the other sales reps in the office have better sales closing ratios, are closing more sales, and are making more money. You may find that odd as you all have access to the same amount of sales leads. You’re closing by the book yet you’re not achieving good numbers.

I think I know what your problem is You’re using sales closing techniques. STOP!!! Stop using sales closing techniques! The other reps in your office most certainly have.

Picture this you are buying a used car and the salesman asks you, “Would you rather take delivery of the car on Wednesday or on Thursday?” What would you do? You would probably think to yourself, “Does this weasel take me for a sucker? He’s using the alternate of choice close on me.”

Do you think that the people you sell to aren’t intelligent enough to see through your tactics? They are. They don’t want people to use techniques on them. Techniques are for slimy used car salesmen. They want to deal with salespeople that are genuine. And, that’s not you if you use sales closing techniques.

The way I see it, when selling in B2B, selling to Vito is like selling to Bruno, just as selling to Italians is like selling to Americans. No matter what your name or nationality people buy from people that they like. That means they buy from genuine people, not people that use sales closing techniques.

By the way, VITO, as popularized by the book Selling To VITO, is short for “Very Important Top Officer.” That means that Vito, hold a high corporate position, most likely has a high business intelligence. Don’t try to use any of your techniques on him. He’ll see right through you, as would Bruno, Tom, Daniel, Bob, Billy, Scott, or even Sandra for that matter. Assume everybody is as intelligent as you, be genuine, and you will close more sales without using sales closing techniques.

Tino Buntic invites you to visit http://www.trade-pals.com. TradePals provides free B2C and B2B sales leads without cold calling to business professionals, entrepreneurs, salespeople, and freelancers across North America. Tino also recommends Selling Power Magazine for cutting edge sales information and also enjoys reading Jill Konrath’s Selling To Big Companies blog.

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Yesterday I received an unsolicited phone call from a woman. It turns out she was a B2B cold caller. Here’s how it went:

Cold calling woman: Hello, can I speak to the person in charge of your janitorial cleaning services?

Me (the decision maker): We don’t use janitorial cleaning services.

Cold calling woman: OK, then. Good-bye.

That was short and sweet; it was the shortest cold call I had ever received. I regularly receive unsolicited phone calls from B2B telemarketers trying to sell me their services. I actually am one of the few that enjoy receiving these phone calls. Although, I never purchase any of the goods or services being pitched, I enjoy hearing the sales pitches. I like to hear everybody’s selling techniques. Normally, when I say “no” the cold callers don’t stop. They try to overcome my objections. But not this woman.

I’m pretty sure that this woman has been told that she needs to make X number of cold calls a day to book X number of appointments to make X number of presentations and close X amount of sales and earn X amount of commission. I think what happened yesterday was she called me then she finished the rest of her X amount of cold calls with no success. No appointments, no new sales. Today will probably be more of the same - unsuccessful cold calls.

Too many sales managers in B2B sales advocate cold calling as a way of generating sales leads and new business. But it doesn’t work anymore, at least not the way it used to. Executives and decision makers, like me, don’t respond to unsolicited sales pitches any more. They know what they need for their business and don’t need to be interrupted by a telemarketer to tell them.

What usually plays out when a new sales rep gets a B2B sales job is that they are told outdated statistics about how much they need to cold call to be able to sell and earn a certain level of commission. It sounds so easy and too many new sales reps get too excited. It’s not as easy as it sounds. So many new sales reps fail. And, they fail for one reason. Cold calling doesn’t work; B2B cold calling sucks!

I suspect “cold calling woman” that called me yesterday had a bad day. I declined her sales pitch. I’m sure she made another ten calls after that, with no success. I’m sure she’ll quit her job shortly. And, I’m sure it’s because her boss forces her to cold call.

Cold calling suck!

Visit Tino Buntic’s website, TradePals to receive free B2B & B2C sales leads without cold calling or prospecting. TradePals provides free sales leads to business professionals in major cities across North America, including Nashville, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Vancouver, Seattle, Fresno, Hartford, Greenville, Orlando, Kansas City, Reno, San Antonio, Albany, and Biloxi. It is great for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and freelancers such as attorneys, CPAs, engineers, financial planners, investigators, risk managers, insurance brokers, sales consultants, mortgage brokers, realtors, caterers, and office furniture sales reps.

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You may be in pharmaceutical sales and you may or may not be successful at it. If it’s not going that great for you, perhaps it’s because you’re using B2B sales tactics when you really shouldn’t be. Most sales books and programs teach how to be successful at B2B sales. But in B2B, you sell business products and services and deal with business professionals. In pharmaceutical sales you sell drugs to doctors, physicians, and pharmacists. Is there a difference? Should you be using the same sales tactics?

This article provides questions and not necessarily the answers as to why pharmaceutical sales may be different than B2B sales.

• In B2B you deal with business professionals. These are people that went to business schools and know how business works. In pharmaceutical sales, you deal with doctors that went to med school. A lot of them have never even taken a business course. Perhaps business doesn’t even interest them? Should you use the same sales tactics on physicians as you do on business executives?
• In B2B, it is customary to shake hands upon greeting. Should you shake hands upon meeting a doctor? Perhaps doctors are more apt to worry about the transmission of germs and are not comfortable shaking hands with strangers? Should you reach out to shake hands or should you do something else?
• In B2B you can use cold calling as a prospecting method. Can you cold call a physician? Would you want to interrupt a physician that is helping a sick patient?
• In B2B you often have to make a sales presentation to numerous departments and numerous executives and decision makers. A doctor’s office normally consists of three people - a doctor, a nurse, and a secretary. How do you present to them?

Pharmaceutical sales is different than B2B sales. You cannot use the same sales tactics that you would if you were selling, for example, office furniture, accounting services, CRM systems, or even commercial insurance to a regular business owner or executive.

Please visit http://www.trade-pals.com. Tino Buntic created TradePals to provide free sales leads to business professionals across The United States and Canada, including pharmaceutical sales reps.

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