The close of a sales meeting is settled by everything that happened before it. Whoever went through the stages carefully has already done the big work, and what remains is to ask for the sale. The wording of the request matters, because according to the source, when a customer says no they mean it, and when they say yes they probably mean maybe.
The close has already been handled
The first thing to know about the close is that it holds no special technique. The author of the sales book the booklet relies on says explicitly that anyone looking for special instruction on the close will get no further help from him. You simply carry on and ask for the sale.
The reasoning is that everything before it has already taken care of the close. According to the source, once you have worked through every stage with care, and cut no corners, your major work is done.
This connects to what the booklet says about the order of the meeting. The form comes out only after the client has seen what is ruining them and understood that there is a solution, and the request to close is the continuation of that moment.
So a search for a closing technique usually points to something earlier that was left undone. Suppose an owner who searches the internet for closing lines. His problem sits in the fifth minute of the meeting, long before the end. Once he begins to locate what is ruining the client, he stops searching for lines, because the request becomes self-evident.
Why no is different from yes
Here is a distinction that sets the whole wording of the request. According to the source, when a customer says no, they mean it, and it will be very hard for the seller to change their mind, if at all. When they say yes, they probably mean maybe, or at best a yes that holds until they think better of it, which is quite likely.
The two answers are not symmetrical. A no is locked, and a yes stays open. From this follows the aim of your wording, which is to avoid creating an opportunity for a no.
Suppose you ask the client whether he wants you to begin. That invites a clean no, and from there it is very hard to come back. If you ask when it suits him to begin, next week or the one after, the option to refuse still exists, and it is simply harder to use.
A choice instead of yes or no
According to the source, the simplest way around a damaging refusal is to offer a choice. You control the conversation, so you ask which of two options, or three, or four, the client prefers. Whether he wants any of them at all stays unasked.
The source puts it the other way round too: ask how, and leave whether alone. In its example, the seller who closed the deal skipped the question of whether the person wanted the machine, and asked how they wanted to pay for it.
According to the source, the result is precise. The seller left a no possible, made it much harder, and offered a choice instead of an ultimatum.
There is a limit, and it comes from the chapter on asking for decisions. The rule against asking the client to decide returns here, because the last moment is the most tempting one to break it. The choice you offer is a choice about how. Asking at the end of the meeting which package the client prefers already puts a decision about whether on him, at the worst possible moment. The source adds a note worth remembering: play down anything that resembles a sales gimmick, and just sell.
The opposite case sounds respectful: telling the client to think it over and get back to you. According to the booklet, that offer produces a refusal without anybody having said one.
Do not talk about the form
The bluntest instruction in the chapter is aimed at the instinct of anyone who is uncomfortable selling. According to the source, when the time comes to sign, you do not discuss signing the papers or filling in the contract. You simply do it.
The source also explains what makes that possible. The form and the pen lie in the client's field of vision for ten or fifteen minutes beforehand, so that he gets used to them, and they are not pulled out of a drawer at the last second. The management material the booklet rests on completes the picture: we fill the form in ourselves, and hand it over complete except for the signature. The less the offer demands of the buyer in decision and effort, the better.
Suppose a consultant who lays the agreement face down on the table when the meeting begins and never mentions it. At the end she simply turns it over. The opposite case is an owner who ends a good meeting by promising to email a proposal and wait for the client to come back. According to the booklet, that is the moment a closed sale becomes an open one, and the commonest way of giving up a sale that was already made.
The booklet gives this chapter a closing practice section with two exercises, one for building and one for preparing, and a self-check. It is the last chapter in the booklet, and it completes the half that deals with closing.
Most of the work of closing is done long before the end. At the end, what remains is to ask, in a way that leaves the client a choice about how.