How to close a sale with a customer online? If you want to close sales deals, you're in the right place 😎

1°) What do you need to close sales consistently?

To close sales consistently, you need to build a sales system that close deals constantly and exponentially. Some techniques will always work to close deals but other ones will tremendously accelerate your sales pipeline.

Over the years, I've come up with a sales process that helps me close sales without pain. This is my 7 step magical process to close sales like a boss.

2°) My 7 step magical process to close a sale

Step 1: I enrich my warm prospects with their social media URLs

When it comes to closing sales, it's all about turning my B2B SaaS sign-ups into paying customers as a startup Co-Founder.

Before and after I enriched my warm prospects contact informations

The problem is that when you have sign-ups on a software, unless you ask tons of question to prospects (which can kill their envy to sign up), you don't have many informations about them except their email address.

So your first job is to enrich the email addresses of your warm prospects with their social media URLs (specifically LinkedIn and Twitter) because it will be key for our closing technique.

You're not obliged to get their personal Twitter URL and Company one but it will help later on to build B2B relationships faster.

First, it's good to point out that my warm prospects are automatically pushed to a specific list in my Social Selling CRM. They also go directly in the warm stage of my sales pipeline.

Getting the LinkedIn URL is key to close the sale in B2B

To enrich prospects with their LinkedIn URL and Twitter one, you can do it in two ways:

• manually

• using a data enrichment software (eg Clearbit)

I personally do it manually because it doesn't take me much time with the following process:

• check if the email address is a B2B email address

• check the website if it's a B2B email and look for the LinkedIn company URL

• type the name of the prospect on the LinedIn company

• type the name of the prospect on Twitter along with the company one

• copy paste all the social URLs in the corresponding Breakcold's field

Note: if your warm leads don't have any B2B email addresses, try to copy paste their email address on Google. Most of the time you'll be able to retrieve them pretty easily.

Step 2: I add them on LinkedIn and start tracking their posts

Once I collected all the social URLs of a prospect, I connect with them on LinkedIn. I always try to add warm prospects within 12 hours of them becoming warm leads so they will remember at the time of the invite. This guarantees me an acceptance rate close to 100%.

Once I added them on LinkedIn, I start to track them using Breakcold. Breakcold will aggregate all the LinkedIn posts and tweets of my prospects so I can engage them with no efforts.

This is how you track leads using Breakcold

For example, I can like and comment a post but I can also send LinkedIn messages, cold email or Twitter message from one place. It's pretty game changer to close sales faster because of how much time you save.

Step 3: I engage with all their posts

It takes Breakcold about 2 minutes to 4 hours to get the old posts of a prospects before checking every day if there's new ones.

One the posts have been aggregated, I will review each lead and engage with their past posts by leaving likes and comments. That way, I will remain top of mind during the closing process.

Doing this social selling strategy is a new way to do the Target Account Selling technique when you think about it.

You mostly like and comment their posts

Step 4: I reach out when it makes sense to

When it makes sense to reach out the warm prospects, I send them a LinkedIn message if I see that they're active on LinkedIn or I send them a warm email.

In both ways, I will use what they shared on socials to come up with a personalized message to bond with them more easily.

Here it's a cold LinkedIn message but you get the idea

Step 5: I analyze their activity on my software

Another part of this sales closing process is that I analyze what kind of actions they performed on my software. This allows me to get as much data as possible to understand in what part of the software they are interested into and what are their pain points.

Step 6: I nurture them personally with actionable content

When I write strong blogposts like this one, I will also send them a message if I know it's something they're interested into. Nurturing your leads until they close is key to accelerate your sales cycle time.

What worked the best though for me is to nurture them with my LinkedIn posts or Tweets. Indeed, most warm prospects will see your content in their feed if you connected with them on LinkedIn or engaged them on Twitter.

Do you know that leaving a LinkedIn comment under someone's post or replying to a comment under your boost chances by +70% that you'll see the next post of the author/commenter?

Example of a lead nurturing technique with a LinkedIn post magnet

When you know that, it's no wonder that the fastest growing B2B companies are leveraging social selling techniques through LinkedIn to close sales faster. This is how +70% of sales representatives who outsell their peers use Social Selling.

Step 7: The deal will close at some point because of the B2B relationship built

I talk about it more deeply in the third sales closing technique that worked for me below but basically over time, you're guaranteed to close sales.

3°) Other ways to close a sale that worked for me

Beyond my magical closing sales technique with social selling, I also closed many sales without doing my magical closing process with warm emailing or during calls.

1/ How to close a sale via email (example)

It happened to me in the past to close sales only through emails, it happened in different ways to so I'll try to give few examples.

First example: just sending emails and closing sales

Sometimes, just by sending cold email campaigns, we closed new sales. Prospects opened the email, didn't replied to it, checked the website, signed-up and paid within 2 minutes of trying the product.

This kind of sales are quite rare though but it can happen. This is the cold email I was sending at the time when this happened.

Basic cold email that gets tons of results

Second example: replying to warm emails sent automatically

Once you sign up to Breakcold, you'll usually receive an automated email that looks like a cold email that invite you to talk with me. Most people reply to this email with specific questions about the software.

Then my job is pretty simple, I take my inside sale cap and I reply to their inquiries by guiding them through the questions with personalized loom videos.

From there, prospects often closed by themselves.

Don't neglect your warm prospects, they are your most precious asset

2/ How to close a sale on the phone (story)

To close a sale on the phone, you need to avoid selling at all cost. Pretty weird right? Still every best salesperson knows this, the best sales you make are the ones when you're not selling.

You need to adopt a Sandler sales mindset. It means that you're not forcing or convincing the prospect to buy your solution but you focus on their pain points to propose them the right solution (it might not be yours).

The first tech sale ever I've done I made it live during (not after!) a demo call. For a strong 1 hour I talked with the warm prospect, we already talked through Twitter.

Read this article about sales prospecting techniques if you want to learn more

During the call, I mostly listened (I'd say for about 80% of the call). I made the prospect realized of his pain points and how our solution could solve his problems. What happened is that I built massive trust during the call by telling him our weak points and good ones.

In the end, the prospect told me to not end the call and that he will pay live the subscription and not a monthly one but 6 months in advance because he was really pumped about the call and our product.

Conclusion: focus on building B2B relationships is the key to close a sale, like always.

3/ How to close a sale without being pushy (my fun story)

This one is the longest deal I closed by far, it took about 12 months but it was never intended. So what exactly happened?

Basically, I met Ana on Twitter by engaging with other Twitter creators. For months we interacted with each other content through likes and comments on Twitter.

Ana invited me to do a guest post on her blog to talk about cold emailing and so on. Ana at the time had sold her business and was not actively looking for a new job.

But things changed few months later when she became Head of Growth of a fast growing B2B startup. Then suddenly, she was in need for a cold email software and her first thought was subscribing to Breakcold.

It's by fat the most amazing sale that I close

Here's a sample of the Twitter thread she wrote about it below.

I think it really does summarize how you sales reps should learn how to close a sale. Closing $2000 and $100,000 deals can take the same amount of time and effort, it's a long term game (a marathon, not a sprint).

PS: Breakcold was not even born at the time but I was already doing Social Selling without realizing it, that's how I realize how powerful it is.

4/ Do you recommend books on how to close a sale

When it comes to books on how to close a sale, I have 3 specific recommendations:

Book on how to close a sale 1:

SEE BOOK ON AMAZON

The full title of the books is: "Sales EQ: How Ultra High Performers Leverage Sales-Specific Emotional Intelligence to Close the Complex Deal, by Jeb Blount"

Summary

Jeb Blount is pretty famous because he also wrote Fanatical Prospecting.

In Sales EQ, the author discusses the behaviors and techniques of top-earning sales professionals who use a new psychology of selling to engage prospects, differentiate themselves from competitors, and shape buying decisions.

The book covers topics such as answering key questions, mastering people principles, aligning the three processes of sales, disrupting expectations, and increasing emotional intelligence markers.

How useful in 2024?

The book was released in 2017 so all the tips are still pretty relevant but it doesn't take into account the rise of social selling.

Reviews on Amazon: 4.7 out of 5

Book on how to close a sale 2:

SEE BOOK ON AMAZON

The full title of the books is: Secrets of a Master Closer: "A Simpler, Easier, And Faster Way To Sell Anything To Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere, by Mr. Mike Kaplan"

Summary

This book offers a step-by-step guide on how to move skeptical prospects to happy customers who refer others. It covers the eight precise steps of every sale and offers techniques for discovering which prospects can use and pay for a product or service, as well as how to create closing opportunities and handle objections.

The book includes exercises at the end of each chapter to help readers master each technique and step in the sales process. It is suitable for both new and experienced salespeople and comes with a bonus "Road Map" chart outlining the key principles taught in the book.

How useful in 2024?

This book was published in 2012 so all its tips on social media are irrelevant now but its closing tips are universal and good to follow even today.

Reviews on Amazon: 4.5 out of 5

Book on how to close a sale 3:

SEE BOOK ON AMAZON

The full title of the books is: "The Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide: How to Use Digital and Social Selling to Turn LinkedIn into a Lead, Sales and Revenue Generating Machine"

Summary

The Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide is a resource for sales teams looking to use LinkedIn as a digital sales tool. It covers a range of topics, including building a strong LinkedIn profile and creating content that generates sales, as well as tips and tricks for finding customers and sending effective messages.

The book also includes information on the 4 Pillars of Social Selling Success and power tools for growing networks and writing successful LinkedIn articles. It is meant for anyone looking to improve their sales numbers through LinkedIn.

How useful in 2024?

The book has been published in 2021 and is fully aware of the impact of social selling on the closing phase of any sale deal.

Reviews on Amazon: 4.6 out of 5

Other resources to learn how to close a sale

We also have a while chapter on how to close deals in our Breakcold Academy. You don't need to pay anything to access it, there are more than 4 hours of video content that teaches you how to get good at sales prospecting and social selling.

If you want to learn how to generate leads, I also wrote an extensive guide review about the best books about cold emailing that also includes techniques to close a sale.