Steli Efti has helped over 200 venture backed startups build their sales process. In this episode he shares with us how to think about sales mentally, how to target companies that want to buy your services, why sales don't close, and what to do about it.

We have had a number of guests on Freelance Transformation share their strategies for getting leads, and we've even covered proposals in depth, but this is the first episode to really chat about that final step to pay day - closing the sale.

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Steli Efti Shares:

• Friendly Strength vs Unfriendly Strength: a lot of people hate the idea of sales because they picture a bunch of "wall street alpha males", but sales doesn't have to be this way. You can use friendly strength to lead your client to yes because it is the best solution for them.

• Mapping Out Your Ideal Customer:  why you should focus on a narrowly defined ideal customer who you can service best. You can always broaden later.

• Qualification Process: qualify before you sell! There is unselfish and selfish qualification, you want to do both. You want to first determine if you can help the prospect with their struggles (unselfish qualification), then also determine if this is the right type of client for your goals (selfish qualification). After qualifying, then you sell.

• What Went Wrong When a Client Won't Say Yes or Keeps Putting You Off: if you keep getting the run around chances are something went wrong much earlier in the sales process. You need to create a moment of truth and find out what the real issue is.

• The Virtual Close Technique: end your initial sales call by mapping out the exact process that needs to occur for the prospective to purchase your services.

• How to Sell Enterprise:  key lesson is no matter what size of business you are selling to, you are selling to people not the organization. It's not IBM that is buying your solution, it is "Mary". Normally multiple people are involved, often with conflicting priorities. Your solution needs to meet their needs.

Get Steli's Book at 50% Off:

E-mail Steli at steli@close.io and he will provide a 50% discount code for his book, The Ultimate Startup Guide to Outbound Sales.

Find Steli Online:

• Close.io Blog (much more of Steli's advice): blog.close.io
• Email: steli@close.io
• Twitter: @steli