With a renewed emphasis on qualifying prospects more thoroughly during the prospecting phase, you should now have much better leads in your pipeline to give presentations to. And because the quality of your prospects is better, you can now approach the close—or presentation or demo stage—much differently as well. The old way of closing, the “spray and pray” method in which you just pitch and pitch at the prospect and then ask for the sale at the end, hoping and praying they say yes, should be abandoned completely for a more engaging and consultative approach.

Your goal now is to check in with your prospect throughout the sale, slowly build a yes momentum, and get buy‐in throughout the selling process. By adopting this more collaborative approach, asking for the sale at the end becomes a natural result of the closing process, and one where the prospect is saying yes much more often.

In this chapter, I'll give you some solid tools and techniques to help you engage your prospect and create a more balanced, two‐way conversation. Included in this section are ways to get your prospect engaged, ways of requalifying a prospect if you didn't learn everything on the first call, and also ways of handling initial resistance you sometimes get when a prospect either doesn't have the time for your presentation or has changed their mind for another reason. You will also learn how and when to begin handling objections during this opening phase of your presentation, as well as some strategies to be more effective with your time. Overall, this section will help you feel more prepared and confident going into your closing call.

In chapter eight, “How to deal with specific objections,” you will find a fresh approach to handling some of the recurring objections you get the majority of the time. “I haven't looked at the information yet,” and the persistent objection, “I need to think about it,” along with many other common objections are addressed in this section. You will find multiple word‐for‐word examples on how to handle each of these objections, and I encourage you to use the ones that resonate with you. You will also learn how to deal effectively with the influencer as well as how to handle other stalls such as when your prospect wants to check references or claims that they are doing business with a relative or friend. You will find current and effective ways to deal with and overcome these and many other objections and closing situations you may be struggling with now.

Then, in chapter nine, “Winning closing techniques,” you will find even more word‐for‐word scripts and strategies to help you build momentum during your presentation and handle other situations you run across during your selling presentations. What might be the most important piece of advice here is asking for the sale five times or more—at least! Over the years, I've found that the true art of closing—whereby you listen to an objection, isolate the true problem, address it, and then ask for the sale again—has been lost. Today, most sales reps give up much too easily at the first sign of resistance or an objection. Learning how to persevere and win the sale is an advanced technique that takes patience, confidence, and lots of proven techniques and strategies. If done professionally, and in the right situations, this ability to build value and convey an urgent sense of belief in your product or service can and does often make the difference in whether your prospect buys from you or your competition.

Finally, in chapter ten, I will address what to do if the sale doesn't close right away. The best way to schedule a call back and follow up with prospects is laid out word‐for‐word, and I give a final shout‐out to the power of sending cards. Whether you choose to handwrite a card or use a company to do it automatically for you, what I have found over the years is that if a prospect has a need for my product or service, that need rarely goes away. Things change all the time, and when they change once again for my prospect, I want to be sure that I am top of mind so that their next phone call is an easy choice—me! Developing an automatic card campaign that sends a personalized and customized card to my prospects over the course of 12 months has proven to be the most effective way I have found of doing just that.

You will learn many proven and valuable techniques in this third section on closing, and once again I encourage you not to just read this material but rather to study it, break it down, and adapt the scripts and techniques to fit your personality and your product or service. Once you do, then practice, drill, and rehearse these techniques and scripts, and record and analyze yourself so you can improve on every phone call. If you make this commitment to yourself, I guarantee that your closing results will go up dramatically. You will begin making more sales and seeing more money each week in your paycheck, but perhaps even more importantly, you will begin feeling much more confident when you are on the phone working with a prospect. That is when sales finally becomes fun, and even easy. In truth, that is how sales should be: helping someone who has a real need and desire to buy the best solution to help them—yours.

Opening a Closing Call

How do you open your closing presentation calls? Have you scripted out the best opening, or do you wing it? Do you let your prospect take the lead, by asking if this is still a good time for them, or do you confidently and enthusiastically assume the opening and set the pace for the rest of the call? The way you open your closing call often determines how the presentation will go, and many sales reps set themselves up for stalls by opening a closing call weakly. Here are some wrong ways to open your closing calls.

Five Ways to Get Better at Handling Objections

I coach a lot of sales professionals, one on one, in individual sessions every week. Sales managers, business owners, and individual sales reps who are committed to moving into the Top 20 Percent or Top 5 Percent of their profession choose the individual attention they get. Before working with someone, I send out a “coaching intake” form that they fill out and return to me before our first session. This gives me insight into their situation and particular sale, what they want to work on, what is standing in their way, and what they hope to accomplish during our time together.

When working with individual sales reps, one of the most common requests I get is that they would like to get better at handling objections. I tell them all the same thing: “if you just do exactly as I will teach you to do, then in 60 days, you will know exactly how to handle objections, and you will no longer be scared when your prospect or client brings one up.”

In fact, I tell them, you will even welcome them!

So what's the secret? Well, there are five of them, really, and I list them in this section. If you want to get better at handling objections, if you want to confidently learn to handle or overcome them like the top pros, then simply follow the secrets I give you here.

How to Use Assumptive Statements

Want to make your presentations instantly better? Then invest some time and change your closed‐ended, weak closing statements and questions into powerfully persuasive, assumptive statements that lead your buyer to make the decision you want them to make. Assumptive questions are just that—they assume an answer rather than ask for it, and in doing so, they cut through any hesitation or resistance a prospect is tempted to put up. Also, a good assumptive question also heads off any smokescreen objection a prospect might try to hide behind.

If you look at your presentation carefully enough, you will find many opportunities to replace closed‐ended questions with assumptive ones. Here are some examples to get you started:

As you can see, nearly any open‐ended question can be turned into an assumptive one. And do you see how much more suggestive and powerful they are? Go through your qualifying scripts, your closing scripts, and your rebuttal scripts, and look for opportunities to transform your closed‐ended questions into powerful and effective assumptive ones. Then watch as you gain more control over selling situations and begin eliminating the objections and stalls that you may be creating right now.

The Importance of Confirming Your Answers

Let me give you a quick, easy‐to‐use technique that will make your closes shorter and more effective. The technique is to confirm your answers to any buying question—or any objection—that you get. The importance of this came up for me while I was listening to a series of phone calls during which a sales rep was conducting a demo of a product. When the prospect asked the price, the rep gave it to him, but then he just kept talking to justify it!

It went something like this:

What happened on this call is that the closer, in his attempt to justify the price, actually introduced a series of questions that turned into objections, and that led to this sale being stalled. That is the big danger whenever you begin talking past the close.

What the rep should have done is use a confirmation statement to see how the price sounded for the prospect. Something like this:

If building more value was required, then he could have gone into a brief explanation of that, but even after that he would still have to confirm his answer (which he and most other closers rarely do).

To take this further, if the prospect then said that it did fit within his budget, the next question would have been:

If the answer to that question was positive, then:

This way, the close could have happened long before the rep talked his way past the sale.

This idea of confirming your answer is crucial not just when you answer a question, but also when you answer an objection as well. For example, after you answer a price objection, or objection about availability or any other objection, the thing to do is confirm your answer. Use any of the following:

If you get a yes, or if you get buy‐in, then you ask for the order! Say:

If the prospect then has another question or objection, you answer that as well, confirm your answer, and ask for the order—over and over again.

The point here is that if you confirm your answer, then it is time to ask for the order again. If you don't, and you are probably talking or pitching after you answer a question and, chances are, you will be talking past the close. And why would you want to do that?

Seven Things to Say When Prospects Don't Have the Time for Your Presentation

We have all been there. You call your prospect back at the appointed time for your presentation, and they tell you any of the following:

Or

Or

Or

They tell you they have a meeting in 10 minutes, can you give them the information anyway? Or any other put‐off that will cut short the 30‐minute comprehensive presentation you had planned.

Most sales reps respond to these objection‐like receptions by asking if they would prefer to set another time. That response might be appropriate with the first put‐off—the “This isn't a good time,”—but with any of the others, I have a better technique for you.

Let's start at the beginning. First, when you get this kind of response from a prospect you qualified a week or so ago, don't be surprised! Face it: it is a law in all sales—leads never get better! If you sent out the hottest lead ever, a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, then when you call them back, have you ever noticed that now they're about a 7–8?

And of course since most sales reps don't qualify thoroughly enough, most of the leads they stuff into their pipeline are made up of 5s and 6s. And you can imagine how they are when reps reach them. So expect that your leads are going to drop in interest and receptiveness when you call them back, and then be prepared with a best‐practice approach to handling this. Here is what to do.

Whenever a prospect responds to your call to do a presentation with one of the preceding responses, the “How long will this take?” kind of response, don't offer to call them back later. Instead, get them to reveal their true level of interest to you, and get them to tell you exactly how to pitch them to get the deal. Here are a number of statements you can use to do just that:

Or

Or

Or

Or

Or

(Now really listen.)

Or

(Now thoroughly requalify your prospect.)

As you can see, the preceding responses are all aimed at getting your prospect to reveal to you both their level of interest and what it is going to take to sell them—or whether or not they are still a good prospect for you. Also, these prepared responses help you reestablish control of the call. Have some fun with these. Customize them to fit your personality or the personality of the person you are speaking with. Find your favorites and then, as always, practice, drill, and rehearse them until they become your automatic response when your prospect tells you they don't have time for your presentation.

How to Stay Organized (and Efficient!)

How are you at organizing your day? Do you find that the “small things” like organizing your office, organizing your laptop, checking in with old customers just to see how they are doing, distract you from what you know you need to be doing to make more money—that is, cold calling, following up on leads, calling prospects back who are on the fence, and so forth?

If you are like most inside sales reps, then there are many distractions that seem to scream out for your time and attention. There is checking and responding to emails, organizing your calling campaign and leads, keeping your leads and notes together and up to date in Salesforce, and calling on existing customers to follow up on sales. There are also meetings, social network research, websites and prospect research on Facebook, and so on. When it is finally time to prospect for new business, it is lunch time, or time to go home!

On top of all of that (or perhaps at the bottom of it all), there is the real dread of making those outbound prospecting calls—you know, call reluctance. So what can you do to break out of this vicious cycle of procrastination?

You are going to use the proven time management technique known as “The Top Three Priorities.” Here is how it works. First, before you go home for the day, make a list and identify the three most important things you need to do the next day to accomplish the only goal that matters: Making sales. These items might include:

• Call the hottest prospects in your pipeline—those most likely to buy that day.
• Make a definite number of cold calls to keep your pipeline full.
• Follow up with recent orders to upsell them.
• Reach a certain number of existing clients to look for upsell opportunities.
• Put together proposals or quotes.
• Follow up on proposals or quotes.
• Check in with prospects or leads in your pipeline.

Once you have picked out the three most important items that you can do the next day, pick again the three next most important items that are going to lead to sales that day and write these down in order of importance and leave them on your desk for the next morning.

By the way, making this list the night before is crucial, as it allows your subconscious mind to begin devising ways of accomplishing them for you. Believe it or not, what you write down and intend to do sends a powerful message to your subconscious mind, and it will work hard during the evening and night, preparing you to accomplish your goals for the next day.

Now here is the key to the whole process of identifying your Top Three Priorities. When you get in the next day, start working on one priority at a time and work through it to completion before you move on to the next one. In other words, resist the temptation to multitask these three priority items. As you know, if you begin doing too many things at once, you end up not completing any of them.

The key to this powerful time‐management technique is to pick out the most important priority you have identified, then complete it, and then move on the next one, complete that one, and then move on to the next one and complete that as well. If something comes up—like an inbound customer call, or an urgent email you need to address—then certainly handle that, but then immediately get back to the priority you are working on.

While I know that many other things will compete for your attention, and some of them might even need to be done, sticking with and accomplishing your Top Three Priorities will not only make you ultra‐efficient, it will relieve a lot of anxiety for you as well. Let me give you a brief example.

Years ago when I decided to become a full‐time consultant, I had a lot of work to do on my business. I had to create the website, write all the copy for the pages, create downloadable e‐books for my initial products, find hosting sites, shopping carts, write e‐zines, create opt‐in pages and links, deal with my webmaster several times a day, proof all the pages endlessly, and much, much more. While all these projects were critical for me to begin my consulting practice (and I enjoyed doing them), what I found after a while was that I had stopped doing the things that brought me the money. I needed to pay my mortgage and my webmaster, and so on. In other words, I had stopped cold calling and selling. The solution to this was to create my Top Three Priorities list and make sure that I worked through them, one by one, before I responded to my webmaster, before I began proofing pages or writing copy, before I created another web page, and so on.

I started by making 35 cold calls each day. I took all the time I needed to make these calls, and only after I was done I then follow up with any leads I had (priority number two). When I finished that, then I moved on to my next priority—which was to call five people in my network to prospect for work or to get other leads from them. Only after I completed all three of these priorities did I dive into my work on the business. What I found reinforced the importance and effectiveness of this time management technique.

The first benefit was that as I took care of the important and difficult things—like cold calling—I felt great relief because that big pressure was lifted from me. Second, as I completed the next priority, I gained confidence and encouragement as I scheduled meetings and moved closer to closing deals. Finally, as I worked through the last priority, I felt a tremendous sense of freedom and accomplishment, because I knew that the things that would have nagged at me all day were completed. I was now free to handle the other important things guilt‐free!

Another benefit started showing up as well: I started closing deals and making money. As the saying goes: “Sales solve everything.” It did make all the work on the business and website so much easier. As I continued to set three priorities and complete them one by one each day, I made significant progress both on my career and on my website. The rest, as they say, is history.

But it all started by setting and working through each of my three priorities, one by one, before I moved on to all the other important things that tugged at me in my day. If you are struggling to take back control of your day, then pull out a piece of paper and start writing down your Top Three Priorities right now. Remember to organize them around your most important goal for each day: making sales. This one technique is the most important time management strategy I have ever learned, and I guarantee that once you begin using it, you, too, will feel more confident, become more efficient, and make more sales.

How to Get Your Prospect Talking

Have you ever had a prospect that you just can't read? Someone who, during your closing presentation, simply won't share much of his or her opinion one way or the other? Or should I ask how many prospects do you have like that? These days, many prospects hide behind nebulous stalls like, “Let me think about it,” or “I'll run this by the committee,” and so forth, and it is often hard to know where they stand. Then it gets worse when you try to set an appointment to get back with them only to hear, “Let me get back to you.”

If you are struggling with prospects like this, then it's time to learn some advanced closing skills that only the Top 5 Percent are comfortable using. And that means asking open‐ended questions and encouraging your prospect to be honest and to fully answer your questions either negatively or positively. While this may sound easy to do, only the top pros know how to fully listen long enough for their prospect to tell them how they really feel. (They use their mute button!) Top pros are not afraid of getting a negative response. They are interested instead in what the prospect is really thinking.

To get your prospect to open up, you need some well‐crafted scripts that lead your prospect into telling you the truth. Then it is up to you to adapt and make them your own so you can deliver them sincerely and not sound sales‐y. Take some time to review the choices that follow and do just that—make them your own.

Softening Statements That Keep Prospects Talking

One of the objections I always get from salespeople who don't want to use scripts is that they are afraid they will sound so, well, scripted. I tell them that if they sound like they are reading them, then of course they will. But if they internalize them and then deliver them naturally, then they don't sound like scripts at all. Instead, they will sound confident and professional.

The other objection I get about using scripts is that many scripts sound very sales‐y. Some even sound too direct and pushy. Again, it is all about how you deliver them. For example, are you matching the pacing of the person you are speaking with? Are you using timing properly? Are you hesitating and adding the right inflection at the right time?

You see, the great thing about scripts is that they afford you greater flexibility in not only what you say, but more important, how you say it. Let's face it: inflection, pacing, and tone are everything when you are selling over the phone.

The other great thing about a carefully crafted and delivered script is that you can use softening statements if you sense your prospect is getting irritated, or short, or is in a hurry. If you have to ask for some sensitive information—like who your competition is, or what their budget is, or how they figure into the decision‐making process—you can preface your question with a softening statement to help bring the defenses of a prospect down, and to make yourself sound more natural and more real.

Here are a variety of softening statements you can weave into your opening and closing scripts to help you connect with your prospect and to get them talking.

Positive Statements That Help You Sell

When I began my sales career all those years ago, I was told that at the bottom of all successful sales was a transfer of emotion. My manager told me that I was either transferring my positive feelings about my product onto my buyer, or he or she was transferring their negative feelings about it to me. Whoever could transfer more of their emotion and feeling would sway the other.

Now that may seem a bit simplistic to you, but if you look at the essence of it, there is a lot of truth to it. You have probably heard some of the sayings like, “Enthusiasm sells!” or, “Whoever has the strongest reasons to buy or not buy usually wins,” and things like that. My question to you is: “Are you enthusiastically presenting your product or service on every call?”

I am sure you know the difference between having a good day and having a bad day, right? Have you ever noticed how pumped up you are right after a big sale? You are positive, on top of the world, unstoppable, right? This is why good sales managers always tell their reps to “get back on the phone” after they write a deal. Have you ever noticed how objections aren't quite so bad when you are in such a positive mood?

The converse is true as well, isn't it? Have you ever noticed how, when you are having a bad day, it is easy to be put off when cold calling and how you don't pitch with quite the same level of enthusiasm and belief? Maybe you have even given up after being put off or after an objection, only to then say something like this to yourself: “Well, this just isn't my day. Maybe I should just stop calling today and try again tomorrow?” If you are in sales, then I bet you can relate to both of these scenarios, can't you?

What I have found over the years is that most salespeople let their prospect's mood affect and lead theirs rather than the other way around. After listening to thousands of calls over the years, I can hear how a sales rep's voice drops or slumps as soon as a prospect cuts them off or tells them they don't have much time, or worse, that they don't really see the value in their product or service.

Top reps, have a different approach. They know that it is their job to transfer their belief and attitude to their prospects, and they stand ready with a list of Power Statements that help get their prospect into the proper mindset. They then overwhelm them with their positive attitude and don't give up until they get the sale.

Here are a few statements you should have ready at all times when you are closing or cold calling. Any one of these can mean the difference between who catches whose attitude and who sells who.

Handling Objections When Requalifying

As I have suggested before, it is always a good idea to requalify your prospect at the start of your demo or presentation. Doing so allows you to anticipate objections and position your presentation to speak to whatever resistance you may face later. And to take it a step further, it is also a good idea to use a trial close with the right prospects in the right situations. When I make this suggestion, I get a lot of pushback from sales reps. “But if I ask for the deal before I have given the presentation, before I have given the value, they will just say no!” is the most common objection I get.

So let me make it clear: you are not asking for the deal at the beginning; instead, you are using a trial close to access the next steps and to get a feel for the kind of pushback you might get at the end of your demo. Getting this information is crucial for you, and you can leverage this information during the rest of the call.

Always Have This Close Handy

How many times do you get the objection, “Let me talk to my (partner, boss, manager, spouse, and so on)”? In any kind of sale, this is one of the most common objections or stalls prospects use. They use it because sales reps don't seem to have any effective comeback for it.

Instead, how many sales reps respond actually creates another stall and can actually lose the sale for them! This objection is so common, that it has spawned the following variations.

Or

Or

Or

I am going to give you the right rebuttal to this and give you a real‐life example of how I used this rebuttal—and what I learned—just this week while I was closing a prospect on one of my training programs.

I was speaking with a customer who had recently purchased one of my books of phone scripts. I had never spoken to her before, but decided to call her to learn how the scripts were working out for her. During our conversation, I learned what her company was about, what they sold, and how many reps they had. I also established that she was one of the owners. After listening to exactly what she was trying to accomplish, I suggested helping her by writing customized scripts and having her team record those sales presentations so I could revise and perfect their scripted sales approach. I also added that these recordings could then be used as a “training library” that she could use to onboard new hires. Then I asked how that sounded.

That is when I got the preceding objection. She said: “I'll run this by my partner”

This is where 80 percent of sales reps let the prospect go with, “Okay, when should I follow up?” That is the wrong response to make. Instead, the proper technique is to isolate this objection by taking the other decision maker out of the equation so you can gauge how your prospect truly feels about it. Because let's face it: if your prospect isn't sold, then the other decision maker isn't going to be, either. So here is the close you need here. I said to her:

And this is where this technique really pays off. If she had said, “I'd do it!” then I would have set some coaching times on our calendars (nothing set in stone; just set some tentative dates—another form of a trial close), but if she said what she did, then I would know exactly where I stood. She said, “I'd then go back to my reps and tell them to use the scripts I just bought and see how that goes first. I'd tell them I had already spent a lot of money on them and they needed to produce before I'd be willing to spend more.”

How is that for a good answer? You are probably thinking, “Good answer? But Mike, it doesn't sound like she is going to buy!”

And that is okay. I would much rather know now than fool myself into thinking that she will speak with some mythical “other” decision maker who will persuade her to buy. It doesn't happen that way! She already had her answer, and now I do, too. Remember—some will, and some won't. Who's next?

You see, what is so good about this technique, and her honest answer to it, is that she revealed that she isn't going to be a sale. That means I get to move on. Compare this to how most sales reps would just schedule a call back and then begin chasing her. How many of these types of unqualified leads currently clog up your pipeline?

When I say this is the type of close to always have handy, I mean it. Every time you find yourself in this situation, always, always, isolate this objection/stall to find out where you really stand. It will save you tons of time (and frustration), and you can spend that time prospecting and finding real buyers rather than chasing prospects who have no intention of ever buying from you.

The Three Times to Handle an Objection

Most sales reps hate getting objections. When they get them, their hands start to sweat, their heart takes the elevator down into the pit of the stomach, and they start wishing they had gotten that graduate degree and avoided sales altogether. Ever had days like this?

This is how many sales reps react when they get objections, but not the top producers. Top producers view and react to objections very differently. To start with, because top producers thoroughly qualify their prospects up front they generally uncover and deal with many objections during the qualifying stage. Objections like, “I'll have to show this to my partner,” and others are already known and in many cases eliminated. (See previous sections on proper qualifying, specifically, scripts like, “And after the presentation, if you think this will work for you, what would the next steps on your end be?” and so on.)

Also, top producers have taken the time, long in advance, of scripting out two or three different rebuttals to the objections they get, so if they do get them, they know exactly what to say to overcome them. In other words, they are rarely caught off guard because they know what to say to deal with them.

Third, because top producers know what the objections or stalls are likely to be in advance, and since they are prepared for them with solid scripts and techniques to overcome them, they can take advantage of the timing of “when” to handle an objection. Unlike most sales reps who feel they have to handle an objection the moment they get one (and hence instantly lose control of the call), top producers realize that they have three options as to when to handle an objection.

1. The first time is when it comes up. Again, because top producers know what to say and how to effectively deal with objections, they have the choice of handling the objection when it comes up or of postponing it for later.

The first choice may be to handle the objection when it comes up. This is usually good if the prospect is rejecting a product or service at the beginning of the pitch because they haven't been through all the details (features and benefits) of the pitch yet.

The way to handle this is to use a script, of course. But the key is to handle the objection and then move back into the pitch. An example would be if a prospect objects to the price at the beginning. It could go like this:

(Or any other objection)

In this example, the rep answered the objection but instead of checking in with the prospect to see how the close landed, the rep instead kept control of the call by continuing with the pitch.

2. The second option to handling an objection is to postpone it until the end of the presentation. This is ideal if the prospect seems willing to keep listening but is stuck on an issue or two. This is especially appropriate if you know that you will cover this issue later in your presentation. The important thing here is to acknowledge that you heard the objection and promise to handle that at the end. It goes like this:

(Or any other objection)

What you are doing here is delaying answering the objection and thereby retaining control of the call. The nice thing about this is that by the end of your pitch, the prospect often won't even bring up the objection at all! You will be amazed by how often that actually happens once you begin using this technique.

In addition to this, if you know what the objection(s) are at the beginning of the pitch—or in the middle—you can begin pitching and building value around the known problem area (objection) in advance.

Postponing answering an objection like this is a great way to get your pitch in, keep control of the call, and prepare yourself for what you know might be coming at the end.

3. The third time to answer an objection is never! That's right. So many times, prospects will test you and try to put you off with many questions, stalls, and objections that it's just best to not respond at all. Here is how you do that:

(Or any other objection)

(Now give a benefit or two and keep pitching.)

This way, you've acknowledged the objection, but you remain positive and so sold on your solution that you let your enthusiasm drive the call—and often your prospect's mindset. It is said that enthusiasm sells, and that is true in many cases. The problem with most sales reps is that as soon as they hear an objection, they start to give up.

But by acknowledging the objection, remaining positive, and continuing with your pitch, you can often override any initial objection and get further into your pitch. In fact, if you have done this before, then you will often find that the prospect changes to a different objection the next time they bring one up!

These three times to handle an objection also work for questions as well. The important thing to remember is that it is up to you as to when to break your rhythm and deal with an objection.

The whole point is that you must remain in control of the call.

Try using the preceding techniques and scripts during your upcoming week of pitching your product or service. You will be amazed by how much easier your sale becomes—and how many more deals you'll get.