Logical, Emotional, Personal – 3 Keys to Closing Merchants

There are three keys to closing merchant deals – logical, emotional, and personal.  The order of your pitch and understanding the psychology of your prospect / the merchant is foundational to really closing deals.  I had a conversation yesterday with an experienced merchant sales professional.  This agent very consistently does eight to ten deals a month.  He joined my 6-Week Jump-Start Program to get to twenty deals a month.

For those of you who don’t know what that is:  we offer a program for people who are new to the industry or are really experienced and want to improve.  They basically pay me for my time, and I coach them one-on-one.  They also benefit from a series of about 250 of my videos in a 6-week program.

This particular agent and I were discussing how to make the leap to consistently closing twenty deals a month.  In our forty-minute conversation, I was able to dive a lot deeper into how to really close deals.   I’d like to share some of the information concerning the three keys – logical, emotional, and personal – in that order when closing the sale.

Your pitch with a new merchant will be personal initially, engaging in a bit of personal conversation to get acquainted.   However, if you’re going to make a sale, the pitch must quickly become logical.  You’ll need to talk about things such as savings, point of sale systems, or other tangible, logical reasons merchants should switch to your service.  That’s the presentation stage which must quickly follow your initial opening pitch if you are good at sales.Many sales people who are getting eight to ten deals a month and can’t get to twenty share a common problem:   they never transition from logical to emotional.  Although a few merchants will buy based on logic, most buy based on emotions.  That is true in any sales.  There must be a time when prospects transition from a logical decision and opinion to an emotional one.  Allow me to give some personal applications.

When I complete the presentation stage, here are my transition statements and question, “Boy, it was great talking with you today, Susan.  I think we’ve covered a lot of good information.”  [I try to highlight the best parts of our conversation.]  I might say, “I think we covered a lot of good information today – the savings of over $7,000 a year, the new point of sale system, lowering the transaction fee.”  (Whatever the highlights are.)  “Now, do you have any other questions for me about anything we’ve covered so far?”  I always ask that.  This question marks the end of the “logical” stage of my pitch.  

At that point usually the merchant is going to say, “No, I don’t have any other questions.”  However, if the merchant answers “yes,” great!  Then you can answer questions.  When you are done answering the question, guess what you say?  “Wow, that was a really important question.  I’m so glad you asked that.  Did my answer make sense, or are there any other questions you have?”  Ask the same question again and continue doing so until the merchant says, “No, I don’t have any other questions.”  

When you get to that point, the time has come to transition from the logical into the emotional stage.  Answer why, emotionally, the prospect should move forward with you?  How are you going to make that person feel?  I realize some of you are thinking,  “What are you talking about, James?”  What I’m talking about is how to actually become a really,really, really good sales person and make tons of money.  Most of you have never even thought about this issue.  But you need to explain to prospects how you are going to make them feel if they move forward with you.

How is that for a tip?  You may ask HOW to explain this?  I don’t know the answer to that question for you, so to give you a pitch is difficult.  How ARE you going to make your prospects feel?  After an initial forty minute phone conversation for the 6-Week Jump-Start program with the agent I mentioned earlier, I was able to be very specific about his pitch.  Here are some general ideas to help you:

How are you going to make the merchant feel?  First decide that, then you have to present it.  There are many different emotions you could evoke.  Here is an example I might use:

“Susan, it has been so good talking with you today.  Here is what I can tell you about working with me.  People who work with me understand they are dealing with a local, small business owner.  They are supporting the small business community.  That really matters to people here in the area.  I’m sure it matters to you, doesn’t it?  Yeah, of course, it does.  Everybody wants to support the small business community.  I feel all of us small business owners are competing against Walmart and Target.  So, I love the concept and the feeling of working with other small business owners here in the community.  I’m really looking forward to working with you.  I’m committed to making sure you’re happy, making sure you’re satisfied and getting what you want from the relationship.”

In those sentences, the conversation went from logical to emotional.  Realize that using those lines I just gave you probably won’t work for you.  You need to come up with your own very specific line about how you’ll make prospects feel and explain it to them.  You must take the merchant from logical to emotional.

At this point you are about to close the sale.  Now is the time to say something personal.  Again, the reason I rarely publish content about this subject is because I have no idea how you should make this personal.  If we could talk for a half hour or forty-five minutes, I might.  But everybody is very different; your story is totally different.  To give you a very general idea, this is what I might say, “Before we talk about next steps here, Susan, I want to explain to you that I’ve been in this industry now for ten years.  I am a professional, an expert.  I know payment processing better than your insurance agent knows insurance, better than your doctor knows medicine.  I understand this industry inside and out.  The one thing I can tell you is that I take every relationship seriously and personally.  People who say, ‘It’s not business; it’s personal’ are crazy.  Of course, it is personal.  Your business is personal to you.  If somebody does business with you, you take that relationship seriously.  I take the relationship just as seriously.  So, with that in mind, I want to go ahead and move forward.  Let me ask you a question.”  

Then I close.  (If you want more information about closing, I just published a video and post released last week or two called “The Question Close.”)  Then I go into the question close.  Before I get to the question close, I use this order:  logical, emotional, and personal.  

But guess what?  Sometimes merchants don’t say, “Yes.”  Can you believe that?  How would they not say “Yes” to that pitch?  If you get that pitch right that I just gave you, a lot of people are going to say, “Yes.”  But, of course, some are going to say, “No.”  Merchants who say “No” will say it in a really, really nice way because you made it personal.  You made it emotional, so they are going to say something like, “Oh you know, James, we’d love to work with you.  But we really need some time to think about it.”

Do NOT make the mistake of going back to logical when this happens!  When already in personal mode, stay in personal mode.  You will lose the sale every single time if you go back to logical.  The temptation would be to respond, “What do you need to think about?  The savings are going to be amazing.  Think of all the savings you are going to have and this point of sale system and this feature, and we talked about…”  You are going to lose the sale every single time.  You will NOT talk them into it logically.  They are making an emotional decision; you’ve got to stay emotional and personal.  Perhaps you wonder how these people who sell twenty or twenty-five deals a month close hard or push.  THEY MAKE IT PERSONAL!

I would respond, “Susan, I can certainly appreciate that.  Other people have found after working with me a month they are thoroughly convinced.  They are just amazed at all the benefits I’m providing and all the things I’m doing.  I know you are going to feel the same way.  Like I said, this is personal to me.  I  want to make sure I get your account; all I’m asking for today is a shot.  I’m not asking for a decision for the next ten years.  I just want a chance.  You know that you need to get this done, right?  So let’s move forward.   You are at least going to give me a shot, aren’t you?”  Make it personal.