I was at lunch today downing a delicious Green Chili Quesadilla from Bajio when I overheard to young bucks discussing sales strategies. They must have both been in their early twenties. The one doing the training was pitching the all too familiar and cliche “assuming the sale” method with a misconstrued twist. Here’s what he said, slightly paraphrased: “You just want to go to the door, and assume the sale. Don’t even ask them if they want to buy your product. Assume they do and move on to payment details, i.e. ‘How do you want to pay for this?'”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the inexperience of these two knuckleheads. If this wasn’t amateurish, I don’t know what is? At the same time, I’m not the best salesman and could really take a cue from their ambitious “everyone will want our product” approach, but I always ask for the sale. Sometimes I ask several times to metaphorically pinch myself. I realize that’s a no-no on my part. Just today I was talking with an existing client about renewing a monthly consulting engagement. They already said “let’s go again,” but were out of town, so I was unable to formalize the repeat business until today. But I still asked and now realized the client must have been thinking, “Blake, shut up. Let’s do this. I shouldn’t have to tell you to assume the sale, you already freakin’ got it.”

So how do you define the “assuming the sale” strategy from both a salesman and consumer perspective? How have/haven’t you successfully used the method in your sales efforts?