How many customers have you lost this month? I'm sure it's not something you want to think about too much, however it's inevitable that you'll lose customers and clients for a whole range of reasons many of which are out with your control.

I read a survey some years ago that suggested customers leave a business for four basic reasons: 14% leave because they're dissatisfied with quality of product or service, 9% leave because of price, 5% leave for other reasons and a whacking great 72% leave because of "supplier indifference". Too many suppliers give customers impression that they don't care about repeat business. I've stayed in hotels, dealt with banks and building societies and dealt with suppliers who didn't seem to care whether I came back or not.

The ultimate outcome of selling process is to close sale. Closing sale is extremely problematic for most sales people often causing them to lose sight of this vital objective. Studies show that a vast majority of sales people never even try to close sale by simply asking for order. Some marketing executives estimate that as many as 50 % of all sales representatives quit after their first sales meeting and fewer that 12% persist until a buyer finally says “yes”.

It is imperative that you learn art of asking for business, or your chances of consistently selling your products or services will be reduced significantly. When a sales presentation is made properly, natural conclusion to transaction is to close deal. Most buyers expect to be asked to take action when your sales presentation is followed to its natural conclusion. At this point in a sale, you do not need to use special closing techniques you simply to ask for business.

Closing is actually easiest part of selling process. However, most sales representatives and professionals do not believe that closing is easy, because most of today’s sales training teaches closing process backward.

Using a marriage proposal as an analogy, marketing professional Steven Brown in American Salesman suggests that emphasis on presentation and closing skills puts sales or service industry professional in position of a suitor in Victorian England. “He has barely met girl, but convention demands that he propose marriage before he can get to know her. He uses a well-rehearsed speech to try to persuade her of his worthiness. He has no idea of whether his attention is welcome or utterly inappropriate. He’s terrified because everything hinges on her ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.