Video transcription: At Huthwaite International our research tells us that successful salespeople get an appropriate commitment from the customer when they're obtaining commitment at the end of a sale.

So what does this mean? Well, as a successful seller there are two things I could do. I could walk away from that sale and take on some action that I need to do as a salesperson. Or what the customer could do is give me access to something new or meaningful which means it's moving the sale forward. What this prevents from happening is it prevents us from becoming a free consultant.

I use the analogy of the puppy. So when you have a dog sometimes you have a long stick with a ball on the end and the customer holds this long stick with the ball on the end and salespeople, I often refer to them as the puppy.

What happens is the customer throws the ball and as a salesperson we run after it pick it up and bring it back. Then the customer throws it again. And we run after it and bring it back. Unfortunately as salespeople were so enthusiastic to go away and do something for the customer that's what we become like. The customer throws the ball and we run away and do it and come back. But what happens is this isn't progressing our sales further forward. It just means that our pipeline just goes on and on and on.

So what we're saying Huthwaite International is that when you go and see a customer and you get an action at the end of that call get an appropriate commitment from the customer that gives you access to something new and meaningful in order to enable you to move the sale forward.

An example of an advance from a customer would be that they'd go away and get another decision maker and bring them to the next appointment, the next meeting that you have with them or they might go away and prepare some figures or some data that they need to bring to the next meeting which means that actively going away and doing something to progress that sale forward rather than you going away and actively preparing something every time.

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