A common question in the mind of salespeople is how to “close” more sales.  Obviously, the more sales you have, the more successful you are, and so when you go through the sales literature – the books and tapes and seminars - it offers a slew of methods to “close” better.  From the simple to the complex, the subtle to the direct, the passive to the aggressive, there are almost as many closing “techniques” as there are salespeople.

There are a few basic closing tools, however, that fall outside of the category of technique and are much more fundamental.  One of the most important and powerful closing tools available is very simple and very powerful: product conviction.  You must like the product or service you are selling.  In fact, to be really successful, you must straight out love it. 

Why is believing in what you provide critical to sales success?  Sales is really a transfer of enthusiasm from salesperson to customer.  All of the different communication techniques that salespeople use are really designed for one main purpose - to convey the enthusiasm for the product or service to the customer.  It’s very challenging to transfer something that is not there; therefore the stronger that product conviction is, the more effective the salesperson can be at communicating it to the customer.

Enthusiasm, by the way, does not mean that you have to be super-excited and bouncing off the walls, that is a common misconception.  What it does mean is that you have a rock-solid core of belief about what you provide to your customers and its benefits to them.  You can’t fake this belief; it is easy to tell when someone is trying to sell you something they don’t believe in themselves.  It doesn’t mean that you are blind to reality; you don’t have to think that your product or service is perfect and that it can do anything and everything.  What you have to believe is that you have the best option available for your customers to solve the challenges that are facing them.  You have to believe that you have the best solution.

There are a lot of ways to increase your product conviction.  Really learning your products and services inside and out is the first step. Become an expert in your product, and then go beyond to become an expert in your industry.  Know where your products and services fit in.  Use your product or service as much as possible yourself.  And talk to people that are your biggest fans – your customers.  They are the ones that give you their money in exchange for your products and services – so they obviously have value for it.  They are the ones that use your products and services a lot and the more you talk to your current customer base, the better.   Their stories will be an effective way of building your confidence, and also a great way to convey that confidence to others.

When you have rock-solid belief about the products and services you sell, you don’t have to be as concerned with how good you are at “closing” techniques.  Yes, you still have to know how to communicate effectively, but once you have transferred your enthusiasm, it’s not a matter of if they would like to buy, but rather when and how much. Letting them invest in what you offer becomes a natural extension of them understanding how great it really is.  And that is a powerful close.