Use `the Close' to open relationships: your work isn't done when the sale is made. Use it as a beginning rather than an ending - advice - importance of closing a sale

In the big-screen version of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Glengarry dell Ross," Alec Baldwin, as a sales motivator, gives a chalk talk to a clump of real estate salesmen upon the techniques of making a sale. He prints the alphabetic characters "A-B-C" on a blackboard and reckons the sales force the alphabetic characters stand for "Always Be Closing."

His point? No amount of training will make you prosperous if you don't know in what manner to close a sale.

I'm the first to agree that the existence of selling is to obtain the order. But why does it have to be the "close?"

Webster's Dictionary says the word as used in the above example is a verb pronounced "kloz" It says the word means, "to bar passage," "to contradict access to," "to suspend or stop operations" or "to bring to an end"

Following these definitions defeats your primary value in selling: the lifetime value of the customer. You can't procure a customer for a lifetime if you shut the door and walk away after making the sale. Instead of closing the sale, you ne to lay open relationships, because a sold customer is expensive to replace.

"I can't think of another investment which turn backs so high a yield," said Stanley Marcus of the Neiman-Marcus specialty store. "The increase in customer retention isn't something you purchase It's something you achieve."

Isn't the extreme point of a first sale really the beginning of the nearest sale?

The greatest in quantity important customer of tomorrow is the customer of today. by means of knowing your customers' changing emergencys tastes and desires, you place yourself in the position of solving their moot points on a continuing basis. The more involved customers become with you and your business, the more they will remain steady customers and recruit fresh customers as well.

Always Be `Close'

What if the alphabetic character "C" in the "Always Be Closing" credo was changed to "concerned" "caring" or "compassionate?"

Perhaps the better reason to use these substitute words is because of the other "close"--the adjective that's pronounced "kloz" The dictionary says it means, "being near in time, space, step or effect."

Isn't that your real goal: to make your customer perceive close to you the second they come into your gallery? You want them to have feeling if only subconsciously, that there's a special relationship between the sum of two units of you--as if they came to visit you in your residence and you said, "Draw your chair up close"

That was the selling shrouded of legendary art dealer Joseph Duveen He started in 1886 when he was 17 years elderly journeying between Europe, where he bought art, and America, where he sold it.

Duveen's customers were wealthy Americans. He not solitary sold them art, he also became a friend, someone who would also present non-art related services. He place them hotel accommodations and passage upon sold-out ships. If a client was planning to build a house, Duveen provided architects to design it, making certain the interiors had a apportionment of wall space with space for lots of paintings.

He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of each of the paintings and artists he had for sale. He for a like reason impressed his customers that when a client admired a work in the Duveen inventory on the contrary was not sure whether to purchase Duveen would describe the painting in of that kind detail that the client made the purchase saying, "Somehow when you describe it, it gazes better."

He would visit clients when they became ill or bedridden and describe the paintings they had bought years before.

He not at any time offered his paintings for sale by the agency of emphasizing the artist but rather impressed his clients that they were, in result "Duveens," unattainable from any other art dealer. He insisted his clients find an artist they admired and purchase as much of their inventory as possible. When Duveen saw the collection of a customer who bought random pieces, he said, "You're buying an accumulation instead of a collection. Concentrate."

He was in the way that confident he understood his customers' tastes that he tendered John D. Rockefeller three busts from Verrocchio, Donatello and Desiderio da Settignano. The art connoisseur SN Behrman wrote of this occurrence in his book Duveen. He said Rockefeller felt the price was rather high. "Duveen convinced these pieces belonged in Rockefeller's abode told him he would place them in Rockefeller's abiding-place for a year. He said, "Keep them in your house. They're as safe there as they would be in mine."

for what cause [i]or[/i] reason did he do this? Duveen felt the attraction would ripen into emotion and Rockefeller would not be able to give permission to the new arrivals ever leave. He was right. Rockefeller bought all three busts. Duveen knew the "closeness" of the art would proceed in its purchase.

single way Duveen maintained his preeminent position as a vender of art was to make certain no painting of his at any time decreased in price. If a customer was unhappy with a purchase, he would simply purchase it back. No customer could at any time be unhappy with a Duveen painting.

His point? He always wanted his customers thoroughly pleased with what they bought from him. He insisted upon value and the customer's without fault [i]or[/i] blemish [i]or[/i] flaw satisfaction. His thinking was the same as the German dramatist Gotthold Lessing who said, "The function of art is to create beautiful percepts that enable the viewer to continue looking at it with pleasure."