I like you find that closing the sale is where most sales people look for magic-bullets. The amount of rubbish that has been written on the secrets of closing is mind-blowing.
Im my market which has been B2B for my entire career, a sale is made early in the cycle, but the order comes much later. The seller and the buyer will engage in a process and the more effective the up-front diagnosis by the seller, the easier it will be to either qualify non-buyers out or to -climb the stairs in step with the buyer- and when you get to the top, the buyer gives you an order. The sale closes itself.

Good post.

Mark

Yes, I agree and it’s all part of a larger process. For example, in direct sales we were taught to close all the way through our sales presentation.

So we’d show them feature A, show them the benefits of A, and then close them on it. “So, Mr and Mrs Jones, is that what you’re looking for in the product you want?”

When we’d closed them on everything else BEFORE asking for the sale, then closing the actual sale was a much smaller step.