How to Close SaaS Deals On Time With This "Closing Motion" Technique

Your next default move when you receive a firm intent to buy or a firm buying signal is to ask what happens next twice. Okay? Your job is to qualify the rest of the process and the series of steps that come after fulfilling whatever it is your customer is asking for within their buying signal. In other words, what comes after what they're asking for? Right. If they're negotiating on price, if you landed on price, what happens next? They're asking for a contract. What series of steps does that contract need to go through? And so I'm going to give you a default question to ask that works in just about every situation. And then I'm going to walk you through three examples of how this question would be tweaked a little bit based on each buying signal we're receiving from the customer. And then we're going to finish up with a very quick exercise. So the default question to ask as soon as your customer gives you that serious intent to buy, right. They're negotiating on price, they're asking for a contract, they're asking for a reference, something that tells you that they are now in the decision phase of their buyer's journey. After you've acknowledged the firm buying signal. Right. And had a conversation, your question is then, more or less, what still needs to happen from here before we move forward together? And then you want to make sure you follow that up one more time with what comes after that? Because your buy, you want the whole picture, you want the path to signature from here. And usually your buyer is only going to answer with the next maybe two steps or so. And so if you prod them one more time, you'll get a little bit more insight and you'll be able to manage the closing motion more effectively. Okay, so this is the question to use. Take a screenshot or write it on a sticky note and just use this at your next opportunity. I want to give you a few examples of what this question would sound like based on some specific buying signals we're getting from our customers. So, first example is a customer reference. Your customer asks to speak to another customer of yours in an effort to de risk the situation. So here's how you would tweak that question for that circumstance. We are happy to arrange a customer reference for you to speak with. Let's say we did that and you were satisfied with it, you got what you wanted out of that call and you felt great about it. What other steps would still have to take place before we move forward with this partnership together after that? And let them answer. And like I Said, your job is to ask this twice. And after they answer, is there anything else that would have to happen after what? Whatever it is they just said. Okay, so that's example one. They asked for a customer reference. Example two, they start actively negotiating with you on price. We're happy to work toward a win win in the spirit of partnership. Before we get into that, let's say we landed on a price we were both happy with, right? Now you were happy with it, and so were we. What would then still have to happen before we moved forward with our partnership together and executed a commercial agreement? Okay, now you're getting them to answer and you say, what else? Is there anything that would still have to happen after that? This is before you even engage with the negotiation. Okay, example three, right? This is another example of a buying signal. They ask for a contract and you say something like, happy to get that your way. Once I get this over to you, what series of steps still need to happen on your end before it gets signed? Then they answer, and once again, the job is to ask twice, Is there anything else that still has to happen after that? So these are all examples of how the same question shows up in slightly different ways depending on whatever intent to buy or buying signal you're getting from your customer that signifies they're moving into their decision phase. Okay, so the exercise I want you to do from here, I want you to take this knowledge and turn it into a skill by using it, is go ask a variation of this question at the next appropriate opportunity you have to do so. And if you have a deal right now in this stage, right, a deal that's a few weeks away from closing, they're in the decision stage, and you don't know the answer to this question then. Now your exercise is to give your champion or your best point of contact a call and ask that question. Okay? So I'm going to give you a very simple script so that you can do that, because you're going to be calling out of the blue, and some of you might be thinking, well, it's going to be a little bit awkward for me to just randomly call. And so I'm going to give you kind of a softening script. And this is exactly what that call might sound like. So you give your champion a call on their cell phone, say, hey, do you have five minutes to talk for a minute? They say, yes. You say, well, I realized I asked or I forgot to ask you a key question that would help me stay fiercely aligned with you as we move through this process. Together. And so a few days ago, you asked for the contract, and, you know, I sent it your way. And the question I forgot to ask you is, what series of steps do we need to take from here before that contract gets signed? Okay, so you can see that I'm using some language that justifies why I'm asking this question out of the blue. And in this case, it's, I want to stay fiercely aligned with you. You could also say something like, I want to manage my expectations appropriately. Those two work great. You can come up with your own if you want. But the point is, get yourself into action and go use this. If you have a deal that's sitting in the decision stage, you've got an intent to buy, you've acted on that intent to buy, but you don't know the answer to the next steps or the series of next steps question, go call your champion. Give that a try. Now, a quick pro tip before we close out this lesson. Right, this is the first piece of closing or managing a closing motion really well is notice that I used softening language in just about all of these examples so that my question doesn't come across as harsh. Okay. And the one I'm going to zero in on is the price negotiation example we talked about a minute or two ago. Notice before I get to the question, the yellow highlighted language kind of softens the question and makes it seem a little bit less confrontational, a little less harsh, a little less intrusive. So I say, you know, they start haggling on price, and I say, we're happy to work toward a win win in the spirit of partnership, but let's say we landed, we are both happy with right now. What would then still have to happen? Now, imagine if I eliminated the yellow highlighted softening language and I just went, you know, they start negotiating with me, and I just go straight into, well, what still needs to happen after we agree on price? Some people might be okay with it, but it feels a little more confrontational, and you're just adding an unnecessary level of friction to a conversation that could otherwise be handled with more social intelligence. We're going to use some of this softening language throughout this entire course because you are, in some people's opinion, asking somewhat intrusive questions. So you've got to do a little bit of softening to make people more receptive to answering those questions. So go do the exercise before you move on, assuming you have an opportunity to, and I'll see you in the next lesson.