Salespeople get paid to close deals, and they tend to be pressured, I mean managed, by fear. Fear is the conventional sales management tool of choice. Ever seen the Glengarry Glen Ross "Always Be Closing!" sales motivation speech? It's extreme, but there are grains of truth in there. When anyone gets paid to do something, and has managers breathing down their neck, it distorts behavior. Empathy with prospects is lost in the push to "Just close the deal!" Trusting, capable managers can help protect their salespeople from these distorting effects by focusing on doing the right thing; fear-driving managers exacerbate the problem. The result: powerful incentives to sell high-value services like a late night cable TV guy. "Buy now and get a month-end discount!" (By the way, to prospects getting time pressured: Don’t you realize you can get the same discount next month?) Is the high pressure you’re applying today generating short-term results at the expense of long-term results or client/employee trust? What Customers Care About (And It Ain’t Your Sale) Customers don't care at all whether you close the deal or not. They care about improving their business. It’s easy to forget this in the heat of a sales cycle. Okay, yes, you know that—but do you live it? Do you remember it? You or your team probably isn’t selling this way. This idea is constantly driven out of salespeople's heads by the pressure of commissions, quotas and stress. Reminding them (and their managers) requires constant reinforcement. Sell Past The Close With A “Success Plan” Sell “past the close” to the prospect's own vision of their success—however they define it. Help them define it for themselves. Success is not when your service is launched; it's when your service is successfully impacting the customer's business, such as when your software is adopted (not just deployed).