Close More Sales With This Little Known Secret

advertising salespersonHow many times have you had a customer ask you to submit a proposal in a certain way so they could “compare apples to apples“?

Chances are that you take the path of least resistance by complying with the request. The customer does their comparison and then watches you fight over their business with the competition.

How do you break this pattern and close more sales profitably?

The key is to convince the customer that oranges are better than apples. By convincing the customer that oranges are much better than apples and are worth paying a higher price for, you will completely shut out your competition. And you will sell at a much higher margin while avoiding jumping through hoops to get the order.

Early in my career I was selling security systems for a medium size alarm company. I was competing with 2 or 3 companies for almost every job. If you calculate the law of averages I should have closed 25% – 33% of my quotes. But I closed 80% over a 3 year period and my price was often 20% higher than the competition.

I didn’t achieve this with my good looks. I designed security systems that were different than my competitors then convinced the customer that my design was better. Customers could not compare apples to apple so they could get a lower price. My competitors were all selling apples and I sold oranges.

Achieving this takes creativity, sales training and confidence but it can completely change the fortunes of many businesses.

Here are a few points to help you profitably close more sales

  • Analyze your product thoroughly to determine it’s unique features & benefits
  • Develop a list of questions to uncover problems and challenges that your competitors have not uncovered. Keep digging because your competition probably isn’t.
  • Propose unique solutions for your client by focusing on the unique features and benefits of your product.
  • Read books and take sales training workshops to learn sales techniques to be a more effective sales person

Selling oranges over apples often requires a paradigm shift for your customer. It takes an investment of more time and effort during the sales process. But if you do change the paradigm you will lock out your competition and sell for much higher margins.

If you would like to close more sales at a higher profit go to and download my free e-Book “Enterprise Builder”. It is full of tools and exercises to help you develop a powerful sales plan as well as strategies for other areas of your business.

Tony Malyk, Vancouver Business Performance Coach

Tony Malyk
