The world of sales can prove challenging and, at times, intimidating. It’s little wonder that many sales professionals find themselves approaching the sales conversation with an almost apologetic attitude when trying to close a deal.
There’s a difference between using a soft close and simply giving the customer an easy out. Fortunately, a simple yet powerful technique can help you leapfrog past this potential roadblock: the assumptive close.
Let’s look at this closing method to see what it’s all about, how and why it works, and how you can put it to the best possible use in your sales transactions.
Key Takeaways: What You’ll Learn
- What the Assumptive Close is and why it works. Understand the core concept of acting as if the customer has already decided to buy, helping you maintain control and momentum.
- How to avoid passive or aggressive closing mistakes. Learn why asking “Do you want to buy?” gives customers an easy out, while “You need to act now” scares them away, and how the Assumptive Close finds the perfect middle ground.
- 5 proven questions you can copy and paste. Get specific, ready-to-use scripts like “Whose name do I make the invoice out to?” or “When do you want our technician to install?” to close deals more naturally.
- How positive expectations change your results. Discover how your mindset shifts when you assume the sale, boosting your confidence and transferring that enthusiasm to your prospect.
- The “Two-Question Technique” for smoother transitions. Learn a pro tip for transitioning gracefully: breaking your close into two parts (e.g., “When should we visit? Should we come Friday?”) to guide the customer toward a “yes.”
What is the Assumptive Close?
The assumptive close technique is also known as the presumptive close or assumptive selling. During the sales process, when you determine the product is a good fit for addressing your customer’s pain points, you assume the prospect is ready to buy.
Rather than asking ‘Are you ready to buy?’, you use questions that assume the sale and ask something like ‘Would you like me to arrange delivery on Monday?’ This approach helps the customer feel valued while moving toward commitment.
The assumptive close keeps you in control of the sales momentum by skipping past whether the customer wants to buy. In this approach, you assume that the sale is as good as done. You move right into a question as soon as you complete your sales pitch.
The assumptive close is common in retail sales, B2C sales, and velocity sales.
How do you use an Assumptive Close? Understanding the Assumptive Close
Closing a sale can suffer from either a too-passive approach or a too-aggressive one. For example, asking the customer, “Would you like to buy?” shifts the entire conversation’s outcome into the customer’s hands, making it too easy to say no. On the other end of the spectrum, an urgency closed with a “You need to act now” message can scare the customer away instantly.
Also Read:
- Creating Your Top 3 Closing Techniques
- How to Ask For The Sale Without Being Pushy
- 15 Top Sales Closing Techniques To Increase Close Rates
What is an Assumptive Closing Question?
With the assumptive close, you’re no longer asking permission to make the sale — you’ve already made the sale as far as you’re concerned, and the close is just a matter of settling the details. In other words, you’ve answered “Yes” on the customer’s behalf.
5 Proven Assumptive Close Questions & Phrases
Examples of an assumptive close include:
- “What method of payment would you like to use?”
- “How quickly would you like the product delivered?”
- “Whose name do I make the invoice out to?”
- “How many of these items do I need to put you down for?”
- “What day do you want our technician to do the installation?”
The Power of Positive Expectations
One nice feature of the assumptive close is the effect it has on your buyer and your own state of mind. Positive expectations seem to boost people’s ability to sell for whatever reason. It’s as if your own enthusiasm, confidence, and pride in what you’re selling transfers to prospects and turns them into buyers. If you’ve habitually wrestled with self-confidence as a salesperson, employing the assumptive close regularly can help you enter each meeting or phone call with a fresh rush of positive energy.Â
Final word: Tips for a successful assumptive close
Like any other sales technique, there are right and not-so-right ways to use the assumptive close. One key to success in this technique involves making a seamless transition between your benefit statement and your assumptive close — that secondary question that guarantees the sale. (Pausing gives the customer extra time to evaluate and possibly dismiss the benefit statement.)
If you feel the need to move as gracefully as possible into the assumptive close, break your secondary question into two questions. For example, you might ask, “When do you want our technician to visit you? Should we stop by on Friday since you said that was your slow day for business?” Your customer might hesitate to answer the first question, but then follow the prompt on the second question.
While the assumptive close in sales is a powerful technique that can be used across various industries, be it in the healthcare industry or the Telecommunications sales scene. Different sectors may require unique assumptive close examples that are tailored to address specific customer concerns throughout the sales process.
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