“Always be Closing!” The infamous words which are uttered by virtually every CEO, Business Owner or Sales Manager in the U.S.

Before I go into the specifics of why this is a ridiculous sales myth, let’s consider another area of expertise; surgery.

Think about it.  Do you hire a surgeon who is a good “closer”?  Do you determine their value because they can close a wound well?  A great surgeon is a “healer”.  They are organizing and perfecting the entire operation, not just the last step.

You want someone who takes the necessary steps to effectively heal your problem.  They have thoroughly studied your problem, have a plan to address the problem, have assembled the right equipment and support staff to help them and they have the necessary skills to achieve the objective.  In addition, they have talked the process over with you, the patient, so you feel extremely comfortable about the steps and you have complete confidence in their ability to address your situation.

The same holds true with salespeople.  You want a “connector”, not a closer.  We obviously want more closed sales and more deals in the door but to focus on the last step is taking your eye off of the bigger ball.

Do you think your customers want a “good closer”?  We know the answer to that.  What they want is a connector.  They want you to connect your products and services with their problems and issues so that they can have them “healed” (it’s no coincidence that we try to uncover the customer’s “pain”) .  Who do you think will truly win; the connector or the closer?  In addition, who do you think will win the NEXT time you engage the customer?

The reality is that each sale is just a series of individual decisions with the final decision being a closed deal.  To focus on only the last decision will cause you to miss opportunities to influence each individual decision since you don’t treat those decisions as important.  Oh yeah, and you will lose most of the time and alienate each prospective customer you come in contact with.

Why doesn’t this work you ask?  Well, it starts off by assuming your customer is a moron who can’t possibly match wits with your super sophisticated always-be-closing tactics.  It also assumes your customer has never been called on by another sales person who took the same, lame sales course at the community college which insisted that this was THE way to get more sales.  In addition, it suggests your customer doesn’t want the solution that you are selling, so it is imperative that you force it down their throat.

And one more, very important item I almost forgot to mention…virtually every sales person I have ever known hates this type of approach as well, but they feel pressured by their sales managers to pursue opportunities in this archaic, old school, doesn’t work even with your family, approach.

So remember, unless you are selling knock off Rolex watches to tourist in Amsterdam, the best strategy is to be a great connector rather than to “always be closing”.