If you’ve been selling for a while, you know a buyer can renege on a sales deal even after he or she has signed your contact or purchase order. You’re back in your office days later, and your telephone rings: it’s your new client or customer who wants to back out of the deal. How will you handle this? Or better yet, how should you have dealt with this possibility ahead of time?
Yep that’s right. Ahead of time. When you closed the sale. We, at Sandler, call handling it this way the Post Sell. The Post Sell takes place when you close a sale, and the prospect signs on the dotted line. Here’s how it happens in five steps:
1. Re-affirm your client’s or customer’s commitment. It may sound like this. “I appreciate your commitment. Can I count on this to be your final commitment?”
2. You verbally validate the commitment. Here’s where you list all the steps you’ll follow now that you and the buyer have reached a consensus on commitment. Get an agreement for each next step you mention.
3. Ask about show stoppers that could quell the deal A show stopper consists of anything that might arise to cause your client or customer from backing out of the deal.
4. Address the potential for buyer’s remorse. Speak explicitly about buyer’s remorse based on your experience in past deals—what could arise in a buyer's mind that would prevent a deal going through.
5. Above all, make clear that there’s no going back on the deal. Emphasize the importance of honoring your mutual commitment to move ahead, now that the deal has been signed.
Just remember that the time to move through these steps of the Post Sell is when you close the sale and you’re physically present with the buyer.
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