At the end of your sales presentations, you want your prospect to say more than just yes. This might come as a surprise to many sales professionals who have been taught that a successful close means hearing the word yes, and they should focus all of their efforts on getting just that word. In fact, that word can often mean nothing. Far more effective is the attainment of an agreement upon action.

Have you ever heard the word ?yes? at the end of a presentation, only to find that days, weeks, months later the sale never did come through? This happens because of the following important principle: a yes without action is the same as a no. When you understand this, you will begin to leave your prospects with an agreement upon action, something that will detail the important next steps that must take place in order for you to get the sale rather than allowing them the simple evasion of just saying yes.

Take the following example: After a few attempts to get friends and family to try out the household products sold by her network marketing company, Petra gets a neighbor to say yes. Not wanting to take up too much more of his time, Petra hands over the order form and tells her prospect when she needs it back. News of this important deadline is met with a ?no problem,? making Petra feel sure that this sale will happen.

After her pitch, Petra does not hear back from her neighbor. The deadline approaches and she still has no order form. She places a few calls and has to leave messages. None of her messages are returned and the monthly discount order deadline comes and goes without Petra making the sale. She wonders why her prospect said yes in the first place if he, in fact, never planned to buy.

Petra is experiencing how weak a simple verbal agreement can be in a sales situation. Now that she has left him with the forms to fill out, she cannot get her prospect to take action, or even return her phone calls. In truth, she felt a little uncertain about the sale which is why she was so eager to end the conversation before he changed his mind. An agreement that does not get specific is easier to obtain than one that lays out all of the requirements before the buyer says yes.

As nice as it is to hear the word yes in a sales situation, Petra should not have left her prospect satisfied with this answer. She needs to make sure that the customer is actually saying yes to the steps he will need to take in order to finalize the sale. Her dialogue might sound something like this. ?Well then, since this all makes sense to you let's fill out this order form right now and I'll turn it in before the deadline.? If her prospect could not complete the form at that time, she should have taken it away, filled it in herself and arranged a date and time to meet with him to get the form signed. If your prospect has no intention of following through with his ?yes,? you'll find out at this stage.

Action step: Turn your close into a ?next steps? agreement. Break down your buying process into three or four simple steps and make sure that when a customer is interested in your product or service, you get him or her to specifically agree to these ?next steps? instead of just saying yes.

At the end of your sales presentation, be sure that you get an answer that counts. When you have a prospect willing to say yes, push them further to agree to the specific steps involved in rolling out your proposal. Unless you have these action steps laid out and agreed upon, your close will be as uncertain as if your proposal had been met with a maybe.