If you want to have a prosperous close, you have to control the sales environment. Again, the close is the portion of your presentation that is specifically devoted to selling your product or service.

One of the quickest ways to lose control is to pass out your order form too early.

Picture it. What do you do when someone hands you a printed form? You start reading or scanning it.

So, if you hand out your form before you’ve had a chance to sell the audience on the specifics of your program, you’re going to lose them to their own thoughts and reaction to your prices.

You want them to feel excited and inspired by the results they’re going to get from your program before its price even enters the equation.

That’s why I say sell them on the results first, and then about 85% into your close, signal to your assistants that it’s time to pass out the forms.

Under no circumstances should the audience have the order form in hand before you even start your speech. That is sales suicide. The audience would just shut down, thinking you only want to sell to them, and wouldn’t listen to you at all.

Low Barrier to Entry

On your order form, don’t make it difficult for a person to buy your product or service.

You want your form to be clear, easy to read, and with a low barrier to entry, which means simple and manageable payment plans, a written service guarantee, and all of your contact details.

It's also a nice touch to have a photograph of yourself printed on the form for personalization.

If you have an ezine or a newsletter, you can also include a paragraph that, as part of their purchase, they’re getting a free subscription. Just make sure to use a professional ezine service, so that it’s easy for them to opt out later, if they choose.

Get What You Need as Well

Before the buyers leave your table, read over their form and be certain that you’ve collected everything you need to process their order ~ credit card number, name, address, phone number, and email address ~ and be sure that you can read it.

There’s nothing worse than getting home and finding incomplete credit card numbers, missing phone numbers, and illegible email addresses!

Just take a minute to read it over before you thank them for the order. You’ll both be glad you did.

They Want What You Have

You have to remember that your audience actually wants the information that you have ~ and they’re willing to pay for it. All they’re really looking for are these five things:

Are you credible?
Have you done this in the past?
Do you have good results?
Is it a good product?
And is the price right?

By this point in your presentation, you’ve covered four out of five. Unfortunately, the fifth is often a swing and a miss. That’s why I’m going to show you the best ~ and proven ~ pricing strategies next time.

Some business owners use time as an excuse. They say things like:

“When I get x number clients, I’ll do z.”

This is a dysfunctional way of looking at time, and I certainly don’t recommend it, especially when a quantum leap can sometimes occur just by making a decision that time is NOT a factor.

If you do have a goal that requires time, for example, building a house, you must do your research and be flexible with your timelines.

Obviously it’s tough for me to guess at what your goal entails, but be honest with yourself.

Are you using time as an excuse or are you building in reasons to delay?

OR

Do you need to gather more information to see what tasks need to be completed to you to attain your goal?

Always remember, nature abhors a vacuum.

Work will always fill the time allotted.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

If you’ve applied Steps 1-6 of my formula for a live presentation that sells, you’re rounding the bases and getting ready to slide into home.

You’re now ready for “the close” ~ the portion of your talk that is specifically devoted to selling the product or service that will be available in the back of the room after your presentation.

Many speakers get to this point and choke.

They’ve done a great job sharing their story and weaving it into their teaching (Step 6), but then when it’s time to transition to the close, they get awkward and lose momentum.

They seem to have forgotten that the purpose of their presentation is not to teach, but to sell.

Structure Your Teaching to Sell

To help avoid that problem make sure that the teaching portion of your talk is tightly related to the program you’re offering in the back of the room.

For instance, you’re teaching them two or three of your seven steps for doubling their income in 60 days, or one of the five ways to have the relationship they’ve always wanted.

Your teaching, then, is selling. It entices the audience, shows them what’s possible in their lives and businesses, and leaves them wanting more.

That way, the close becomes a natural extension of your teaching, and your program the answer to their desire.

Step 7: A Smooth Transition

When your teaching and close share the same goal of selling, transitioning from one to the other is easy. Just say something like this:

“For years we’ve been perfecting this information, doing everything that we possibly can to make it simple for you to implement it into your life right away. And we’re really excited to be able to offer that solution to you today.”

That’s all there is to it.

Step 8: The Close: Make It Doable

Now, just start talking about the specifics of your program, focusing on the results they’re going to get, what they’re going to learn, and how it will impact their lives.

Convey the strong impression that you have laid it all out for them as much as possible.

Without being deceptive, emphasize how easy and doable your program is.

Don’t overwhelm or confuse them with extraneous detail they don’t need in order to make the decision to buy.

For instance, if you’ve got a program on relationships, the people in your program are going to have to do internal work to get to the point where they’re having great relationships.

But, during the close, don’t talk about all of that internal work. They know they’re going to have to do some work, so you don’t have to highlight that fact.

If you make your program sound complicated or difficult, your audience will tune out and you will lose sales.

For the 15 or 20 minutes of the close, focus on how they’re going to benefit, and how easily your program will guide them to those results.

By the way, you’re delivering this information before you pass out your order form. I’ll pick it up here next time.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

I told you before that you have to know your audience. A similar principle applies when you’re presenting at multi-speaker events. You need to know the other speakers as well.

When I’m speaking at a conference, I always ask for a list of the speakers, and also who’s on right before and after me.

If I don’t know those two presenters, in particular, I do research to find out these things:

What do they speak about? What are they selling in the back of the room? What are their price points? Are they going to contradict my work? Now, you could do your research and still not know exactly what the person before you is going to say ~ or there could be a last-minute change in the line-up.

That’s why it’s absolutely essential that you be in the room to hear at least the speaker who’s going on right before you.

Be in the Room
You need to know what the audience just heard and adjust your speech, if necessary.

Don’t change what you’re teaching, but if you’re going to tell the audience something contradictory to what they just heard, you want to acknowledge that to the audience, so they don’t sit there, confused and uncomfortable.

That can be as simple as saying, “The previous speaker has a different perspective on this, but in my twenty years of working with clients, I have found that…”

Or you might be following someone with an emotional story, and you want to be sensitive and skillful, particularly in your opening remarks.

For instance, a couple of years ago, I was speaking at a conference in Cancun, Mexico, that, due to airline problems, had to make last-minute changes in the line-up. One day, I ended up speaking after Dick and Rick Hoyt, the father and son team, who have competed as a unit in 1,000 marathons and Ironman competitions, Dick pushing his disabled son in specially designed wheelchairs.

When they finished speaking, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room, and no presenter would want to follow them. Getting up there and telling the audience that you’ve got the greatest thing since sliced bread just would not work.

I had to figure out how to transition from their story to mine and still look good.

Because I was in the room, listening to them, and reading the audience, I was able to come up with that thoughtful transition, and we ended up getting great sales that day. If I hadn’t been there to hear their story, I could have seemed insensitive or irrelevant, and our results would not have been nearly as good.

Be Prepared
The Boy Scout motto applies here. Because no matter what you set up prior to going into a speaking engagement, you can be sure they’re going to change something once you get there.

If you’re not prepared, that change could mean the death of what you’re doing.

On the other hand, a little preparation goes a long way toward ensuring that you come out looking like a star with a bucketload of sales to show for it.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

PS: The Neagle Code: Directions for Life is a weekly no-cost
program that is open to everyone! Each week, I'll select and personally respond to one question received via the above “The Neagle Code” page that I feel in my heart will help the most people. (You may choose to remain anonymous if you wish, with our full support.) It is my deep, heartfelt intention that ~ in answering your questions ~ I may provide you with the Universal Truths that in committed application, will set you free. Simply submit YOUR burning question at: www.DavidNeagle.com/ask-david to participate.

When it comes to negotiating with promoters, it literally pays to know your numbers.

By that, I mean, your closing percentage: the percentage of the room that buys what you sell after your presentations.

If you have a high closing percentage, you’ve got clout with promoters.

Think about it. Since the promoters generally receive 50% of your sales, it stands to reason that the more sales you make, the more valuable you are to them, and the more likely you are to get what you want.

How to Correctly Calculate Your Closing Percentage
A common mistake that speakers make when calculating their closing percentage is to use the head count, rather than the buying units. The head count is everyone in the audience. A buying unit is a person, couple or group that can make a purchase.

For instance, if you’re speaking to a room with 1,000 people, but, because of the topic, they’re all couples, you don’t have 1,000 buying units. You have 500, because, typically, a husband and wife are only going to buy one of your programs. Also counted as one buying unit could be a boss and his or her assistant or a small group from the same office.

To calculate your closing percentage, just divide the number of people who bought your product or service by the number of buying units in the room. So if you sold 100 copies of your program, and there were 400 buying units, you had a closing percentage of 25%.

Now, let’s say the head count of that room was 800. If you mistakenly used that figure, you’d get a sales ratio of only 12.5%.

Obviously, there’s a big difference in how a promoter is going to view you if you do 25% in sales versus 12.5%.

Even more important, that ratio wouldn’t accurately reflect your skill and achievement. So you could think that you’re not doing very well in your sales presentations, when you’re actually excelling.

How to Use Your Clout
Knowing your numbers can help you get booked, secure an optimum time slot, and give you leverage when promoters want to make changes.

For instance, if the promoter says, “I know your contract says you can speak for 90 minutes, but we need you to do it in 60. Can you do that?”

“Well, I could,” you’d respond, “but let me tell you what it’s going to cost you. If I do it in 60 minutes, we’re going to lose about 30% in sales. I’ve got an average closing ratio of 20%. You’ve got 500 buying units here. My product costs $1,000.” Pause to do the quick calculation. “That means you, personally, would lose about $15,000.”

“Oh,” your promoter says as the figure sinks in. “Okay. You can have your 90 minutes.”

If your closing percentage were artificially low because you didn’t calculate it properly, you just wouldn’t have the same impact.

Sure, you could insist that they honor your contract, and you should if the situation warrants it.

But it’s far better to turn potentially awkward interactions into win-wins.

Know your numbers and show promoters that it’s in their best interest to give you the consideration you’ve earned.