Do you think the ABC (always be closing) approach is dead?

I've always beleived in ABC---but in an entirely different sense than the "stereotyped" view. You might think of it as--always be moving the buying process forward, always be achieving the objectives of the call/meeting, always be creating value in each interchange.

When I was taught ABC, it wasn't in the sense of asking for the order in each meeting, but it was closing on objectives that were appropriate for the meeting and customer, and where you are in the buying/selling process. It always made senes--it helped both the customer and me move through the process. It helped both of us keep focused on what we were trying to achieve--solve a customer problem.

If we weren't achieving our objectives in each interchange, then we were wasting our time, but more importantly we were wasting the customer's time.

Good topic of discussion and a very interesting read. ABC is insulting to the prospect and positions the sales person as less intelligent than they probably are.
It's about fit, not force.
For those of us on the front lines with prospects it's our job to learn which are left scratching their heads. Get smart about your prospects and lead with intelligent conversation about whatever is concerning them. It's unlikely to force a sales cycle but you can create urgency by position yourself as the strategic leader and be included upfront in the solution. And again, to execute on the project.

Our job is to cast a wide enough net to get at the table with many different companies and determine who is the right fit; who can we genuinely help and go after those prospects. If we are honest with ourselves, if the sales person doesn't feel it's the right fit and help the prospect navigate their internal approval process, the deal will eventually evaporate.

I agree with Peter, if a prospect reaches out, they already know more than you do about what is out there. It's up to the sales person to help them navigate the process up to the close and make sure they are handed off to a capable team to help solve that original problem.

I also agree with David, each exchange should create value and moving toward the close but in the right spirit.

After all, a satisfied client will speak well of our work and will ABC for us.

Oh Please, Craig just let ABC die, along with “Lucky” Rabbit’s feet and Copper bracelets for sufferers of Rheumatism.

Read Rackham's ABC research from 1977,
published in The story of SPIN.

If you don’t believe it, do your own research.

Just count how many times the Salesperson "closes" in any way and for any objective. Then sum the Closes made and Successes gained. Then you, 30 years later than was necessary, will discover that ABC is a dysfunctional Selling Behaviour with an inverse correlation to Sales Success.

When I interview Salespeople, one if my questions is
“What do you think about ABC?” From their answer I can predict their likely future Sales Failure! And, when you check their past performance you can SEE their past failure.

Its not about pushing, you still have to ask for the order, or a comitment. Just do it when the customer is ready, do it as a suggestion, ask for agreement to go ahead and deliver the Value you just Sold them.

Let's get back to Evidence Based Selling , not Sales Myths.

Let’s use FOCUS the wisdom of the crowd to do a good deed for Selling, the death and burial of ABC, Amen.

I can remember in the late 70s, focusing on ABC and role-playing to perfect my "Ben Franklin" or my "If I could, would you?" or "What would it take?"

These techniques did work in their day. It was a time, though, when the sales engagement was an adversarial experience. The prospect walked into a buying experience expecting the sales person to manipulate him. The prospect was correct. The sales person's goal was to raise his close ratio - not to care, too much, about the prospect.

Today people buy differently. The educate themselves on the product through their own research, The will choose a vendor that they trust.

This trust is not gained on a sales call. It's earned by the vendor marketing his expertise through his blog posts, white papers, twitter exchanges and all the other available ways to demonstrate that you are a knowledgeable company - the expert in your field - that you understand the needs of the clients.

So closing "techniques" aren't necessary. A closing technique is for closing one specific deal on one specific day. Market your content, learn the needs of the client and the close will just happen all by itself.

A good manager will sign up for blogs from respected people in his field. Emails from key vendors, institutes and other influencers. He'll join some LinkedIn Groups.

That means there is no such thing as a green-field site for a salesperson any more. Often the person who calls you in already knows more than you do about what is out there, the conflicting discussions and the reputations of the companies involved.

He/she also doesn't have a green-field site to sell "their idea" to. Put something on a meeting agenda and by the time the meeting rolls round several people will have googled it and found information which suits their needs - for or against.

The job of the salesperson in this environment is often "uneducating" - showing people why what they've just picked up on the net isn't the whole story. Helping people set the decision parameters through showing them what's actually important and what is irrelevant marketing speak.

If you break in on your contact while he's busy herding the cats in his own workforce and try to close him, you'll be out that door pretty quick. You need to be helping him make his case, not putting pressure on him.

Hi Adem,

I don't adhere to ABC, but I also don't think it's dead. There will always be "hunters" who think ABC is the only way to do sales. In my experience these tend to be folks who think "a product is a product". They are people who don't care about the product or the client, they only care about their commission. I can't work with these type of people.

Personally, I would go with HCIRP (Help the Client Identify their Real Problem). I always say "people's biggest problem is that they don't know what their biggest problem is." Until a client can get down to their real problem (and not the shallow one they initially think they have) sales cycles will always be long and commoditized competition will be rampant.

ABC aims to create a sale. HCRIP aims to create awareness and ownership on the part of the client. Once the client owns their real problem they are then ready to find the solution and they will drive themselves to do the deal with you. This makes you valuable to them instead of just someone pushing them.

Props to Erik Luhrs and Peter Johnston for zeroing in on the real problem: That buyers often don't have a complete appreciation for the problem, which causes lots of difficulty when trying to find a solution. Perhaps more precisely, the issue is that, initially, the multiple stakeholders in the problem each describe the problem differently due to their different perspectives. Until they create what's called a "shared awareness" of the problem based on having heard each other describe it differently, they're stuck. That's what lengthens the decision cycle. Until they go through a people-process that yields a common description based on an appreciation of each other's respective stake in it, they have no chance to reach any kind of a decision. Hence the high incidence of "no decision" that frustrates salespeople. Each stakeholder, whether consciously or not, resists getting to a decision until she feels that her position, concerns and legitimate interest have been heard and considered. Through the process, she may come to recognize that, in this instance, she may not get much of what she wants because the shared awareness the group achieved makes it clear to her that the optimal decision precludes it. Before achieving shared awareness, however, having not been informed of others' interests, she feels that if only the group would consider her position they'd agree with her.

Ironically, salespeople are often the best ones to facilitate such a group-decision process, which the problem stakeholders always welcome (and value). Once they achieve shared awareness, they're able to align their individual interests behind making a decision. At this point, the decision process actually accelerates because the individual bases for resistance are gone, replaced by a clarity about their professional obligations to the entire organization.

Now, a seller has a reliable set of criteria against which to measure her solution. If it's advantageous, then further investment in this sale is justified. If you discover that your solution is less relevant to the optimal outcome revealed than you'd hoped or assumed, you can disinvest and go find a more opportune situation in which to invest scarce time and resources. There's no nobility in expending great effort and persistence drilling dry holes when the geology report says there's no oil there.

ABC sounds like the haggling at a Middle East Bazaar. Traditionally you go to a trial close only after major customer objections have been resolved. Theoretically if a customer walks into your store or calls inquiring about your product, they've already decided to buy it. That may not be the case if the lead was someone looking on your website trying to troubleshoot an older less adequate version of your product.

I knew a guy who cold called with "I'm selling "x", how many do you want?"

Adam, great topic; Craig good contribution; Brian good point of view.

Please let me show you what's happens in the Italian dealers showrooms:

http://www.automotivespace.it/eng/auto/cadillac-man-fantasy-or-reality-some-i...

Have a great day!

Maurizio, grazie.
We have in the UK and The USA an even funnier TV Program its called "The Apprentice".
Where "real" salespeople (not actors) pretend to be 'salespeople' and sell using Cliché and Stereotypes, basically making a fools of themselves and Selling. This has so lowered the Buying Public's view of Selling that they are thinking of making 80% of us redundant.

Alan Sugar, (UK Version) who made his start in selling, now says "I don't want bloody salesmen", both politically and factually incorrect.
Let ABC and sales stereotypes die! R.I.P.

A good manager will sign up for blogs from respected people in his field. Emails from key vendors, institutes and other influencers. He'll join some LinkedIn Groups.

That means there is no such thing as a green-field site for a salesperson any more. Often the person who calls you in already knows more than you do about what is out there, the conflicting discussions and the reputations of the companies involved.

He/she also doesn't have a green-field site to sell "their idea" to. Put something on a meeting agenda and by the time the meeting rolls round several people will have googled it and found information which suits their needs - for or against.

The job of the salesperson in this environment is often "uneducating" - showing people why what they've just picked up on the net isn't the whole story. Helping people set the decision parameters through showing them what's actually important and what is irrelevant marketing speak.

If you break in on your contact while he's busy herding the cats in his own workforce and try to close him, you'll be out that door pretty quick. You need to be helping him make his case, not putting pressure on him.

ABC has always been dead for sentient buyers. Nobody wants to be closed, any more than they want to experience any of the other "acting upon" verbs in the old-school sales philosophy, e.g., qualifying, presenting, closing, overcoming objections, etc.

The only welcome behaviors are "acting with" behaviors in which the seller is using his or her knowledge of the buyer's problem and circumstances, and his/her knowledge of a credible decision process, to help buyers reach an informed, self-interested, sustainable decision. If too many such high-integrity decisions are not to choose you, then you've just learned that you have a marketing problem. You're either in the wrong market, or improperly positioned in the right market. It's either a good idea to do business with you, nor not. All the techniques in the world won't change that.

Rick, thanks for the answer you provided. Closing , if done properly, is satisfaction for all involved. If it is one-sided on either end it is not a sound deal.I guess my way of understanding this question is: my job today, tomorrow and in the future is selling my products or services.A fair and equittable agreement tends to strongly create repeat business. Freedom, Ed

I love this debate. I don't have an awful lot more to add that others have not said, but I do want to note that the old ABC died quite some time ago, and we should all be grateful. Salesmanship is at last being seen as a profession and the ABC approach did a lot to damage how it was perceived.
It is all about relationship building - online and offline - and while prospects will often need assistance in getting over the line, it can only be done without violating that relationship in any way.
Great discussion and thanks to all.

In reading the discussion above, my conclusion is that ABC isn't dead, it's just that our definition of Closing has changed and is completely different for everyone. To say ABC is dead is just saying that we just don't sound like Alec Baldwin in the traditional "close 'em hard" way. Most of us realize that more information in the buyers hands turns us into more consultative sales people that guide them and pose thought provoking questions that either speed up their buying process, refine the true problem we are trying to solve, or even disqualify a deal. Having said that, don't think for a second any of us have lost the ability to sense buying language, know when we have a deal, and even ask the tough question: "Can we do business"?

Excellent question and great answers by all.

There are so many answers to this question and I think nearly everyone actually seems to be in agreement that a pushy sales person who constantly asks for the order before completing an acceptable sales process will not work. If there is still any confusion on this issue it really comes down to perception of what ABC entails. If you are selling a multimillion dollar project to many stakeholders than obviously it will be a very long sales cycle. I wouldn't expect any sales person to constantly ask for the order as that would be absurd.

The first sales job I ever had was in 1994 and I learned to always get some kind of commitment for the next step and to get agreement as to when the next conversation would take place, what the action items were and what each person's responsibility was. In fact, this is not rocket science and it is really true of any professional meeting. But my boss called this "closing" on the next step. He never used the ABC vernacular and I never heard this until I saw the movie Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. So I always cringe when I hear the acronym ABC because it reminds me of the unprofessional and dishonest use of ABC in the movie. This is why I say this conversation has really evolved into our perception of what ABC means - no one has really defined it so it is difficult to debate it. For me, ABC falls apart because of the first word "Always". Everyone hates a pest.

Hello Adem. For clarity, when you wrote "ABC (always be closing)" what specifically were you referring to? Were you referring to approaching sales as a progression of consent or did you have something else in mind?

ABC is DEAD!

Master the "Transaction Cycle" TC = the buyer controls the purchasing cycle, complexity, urgency and magnitude of cost is vital for understanding their decision process.

The secret is in the "Problem" what is it? How do they experience the problem. Does the customer lack expertise, processes, bandwidth or capability for resolution? if so they need help.

Pre-emptive selling is a strategy of probability, positioning and just in time deployment of a resolution. In short, the market niche is exploiting events that are highly probable, complex, urgent and costly. (i.e. Cyber Security Breach)

Cyber-Security is a threat, "Pre-emptive Strategy", few organizations can afford all the expertise, preparedness and deployment tools in every situation. Therefore new marketing emphasis is placed on "Just in Time Service Deployment"

So here is the pay-off... Position your business to be the FIRST BEST ALTERNATIVE when an event occurs. Therefore nurturing a prospect is mission critical.

Managing the sales cycle today is evolving with new technology, business intelligence and real-time information processing.

Excellent question and insightful answers, thank you all.

There are two basic components-Buying and selling. Any solid sales person must have the ability to make changes to continue to be successful. Ultimately, no matter how you dress it up or how you verbalize it, a TRUE sales person is always attempting to close business. That is what they do.

ABC comes from the premise of win/lose; not one of win\win.

When through "active listening" to the areas where a Client is experiencing problems\frustrations (this via insightful questions) one is able to help the Client (important concept, "Client") clearly identify a solution scenario - Ideally with your product\services providing same.

When this occurs there is nothing that will prevent them from buying, and thanking you for helping them.