Avoiding Bad Sales Practices
Every day, a lot of outbound calls are made from my office. I’m constantly hearing “we’re all set, best year ever, we’ve got more than we can handle, we have so much work that we can’t keep on top of it” and so on. I know and the person I’m speaking with knows that they probably are not telling the truth. I just let that be their problem and not mine.
If you don’t want to end up trying to convince yourself one day that business is great and it really isn’t, you want to avoid certain foolish, common, substandard, dangerous sales practices. These practices include:
- You wing it all of the time. You just show up and assume you will figure it out as you go along. When the sale doesn't close, you can't figure out why.
- You love to talk. It’s all about you, your company and the great projects you’ve completed. Only one problem here…your prospect doesn’t care.
- Your entire business development plan and battle plan is in your head. Nothing is written down. You don’t track anything and you blame everything on the client or prospect when things don’t go well.
- You don’t ask questions about the prospects goals and objectives. You tell them what you think they want to hear. You give them your vision for the project and don’t really care about what your client wants. It’s your design in the end. Right?
- You come from the old school and try to sell features and benefits. You can’t seem to figure out why that isn’t working.
- You don’t prepare for a sales meeting. After all, you’ve done this 100s of times before. You’re too busy with too much on your plate to devote adequate time to sales meeting preparation.
- You believe it’s all about your fee. The lower you go the more likelihood there is for a successful outcome. I don’t think so! Look at what has happened to your competitors who just kept lowering their fees to win business. Many don’t exist anymore.
- You don’t know how to create value. You’re a trained professional. You believe that your prospects should see the value just because you show-up. Perhaps the ego needs to be checked at the door.
- You believe there’s no need to improve your sales skills. You graduated with honors from college; therefore, you believe that the degree is all you need to get the deal closed.
- You’re not acknowledged as an advisor but instead as a vendor and that doesn’t bother you.
- You wait for the client to call you to tell you YES or NO. You don’t know how to get the deal done. You have trouble closing the sale after you’ve invested a lot of time and effort. The sale is never closed until the agreement is signed, you have the check and the check in your hand and it clears the bank. Even then, your client may still back out.
If you want to avoid mumbling to yourself one day as you try to convince yourself how good you are, don't engage in any of these foolish, unhealthy practices believed to be proper by many.
“I never learned anything while I was talking.” Larry King upon announcing his retirement.
Good selling!!
Ken
Ken Levine
Impact Business Solutions, Inc.
508-845-8849
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