How do you ask for the sale? 25 ways to ask your customer

If you don’t ask for the sale, you won’t get it

As a business owner, making sales is the bread and butter of your success. The rule in sales is, if you don’t ask, you won’t get! Knowing how to ask for the sale is half the battle.

If you don’t make sales, you don’t have a business. No sales, no income. No income, no profits. Last week in part one, I wrote about how to spot a buying signal and this week in part two, I’m going to give you 25 ways to ask for the sale.

Having confidence to ask for the sale is paramount

The answer will always be no, until you ask for the sale. Waiting for the customer to ask to buy or waiting for them to initiate the closing of the sale is a fruitless strategy. As I talked about in part one, when a customer makes a decision to buy from you, it’s likely they won’t come straight out and say it. In general, people don’t know how to tell you they are ready to close the sale.

As a business coach, I have observed sales transactions where I can see the customer asking all the right questions and saying all the right things, and physically twitching in anticipation of being asked to buy. I’ve watched business owners allow the same customer to walk away without buying, because they didn’t ask for the sale.

There are many different ways to ask for the sale. It’s up to you to read the interaction and use a question or statement which relates to what it is you’re offering.

How do you ask for the sale? Here are 25 ways to ask your customers:

Product based businesses

• How would you like to pay for that?
• Will you be paying cash or card?
• Would you like that posted or will it be pick up?
• Would you like to pay in full or would you prefer layby?
• Shall I wrap that up for you?
• Are you taking that with you now?
• Would you like me to place the order for you?
• Would you like to take that with you today?
• What day suits you best for delivery?
• Which colour / style did you decide on?
• I can get this in the post this afternoon. Would you like express post or regular delivery?
• Was there anything else you would like to look at as well or was it just the <item>?

Service based businesses

• Are you ready to get started?
• Are you ready to start working towards <the solution>?
• Would this week or next week be best for you / me to start?
• How does that sound? Great! Let’s get started.
• Does that solution fit with your budget?
• Shall I book you in to get started?
• Are you ready to move forward / take action? I can send you the contract right away.
• To get started, I’ll need you to complete the registration page / form. Would you like to do that now?
• Would you like to start with <option one> or <option two>?
• Which plan / package did you decide to go for?
• It sounds like this course / package is a perfect fit. When would you like to start?
• Based on what you’ve told me you need, I recommend <solution one> or <solution two>. Which would you prefer?
• If you don’t have any more questions, I think we’re ready to get started! Yes?

And now it’s over to you…

Workshop this list to formulate questions suitable to your business and your product or service. Most importantly, create questions which feel natural to you. Finally, practice, practice, practice and you’ll be asking for the sale like a professional in no time!

Related post: Questions are the key to successful sales

As you develop your skills and confidence, try new questions and new ways of asking. Every customer is different, so the more questions you have and the more options in ways to ask those questions the better!