7 years ago
February 21, 2017

7 Selling Blunders to Avoid

You can go from tasting the sale to losing it at the drop of a hat. These seven selling blunders need to be avoided at all cost.

Rhys Metler

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Though some sales pros seem like they were born to sell, others have to work at it. Most of the skills needed to sell products or services, in any industry, can be learned. Once you know the steps you need to make the sale and which ones to avoid that could cost you the sale, you’ll be making money in no time.

Here are seven selling blunders you need to avoid if you want to succeed in the field.

Not Qualifying before You Try to Sell

Before you can make the sale, you need someone to sell to—someone who’s interested in buying. Though this might seem obvious, many salespeople tend to forget this critical step. They spend their time, resources, and effort on prospects who just aren’t ready to buy from them. They forget to qualify their potential customers. Not everyone will be in the same stage of the sales funnel. By qualifying your prospects, you can better understand what they want and whether or not they’re willing and able to purchase from you at this moment.

Overselling

Old-school salespeople in particular make this mistake. They’re used to being pushy and aggressive to make the sale. And this can really turn off prospective customers who might have purchased, but now do not want to be anywhere near you. They won’t trust you or want to buy from you if you reek of desperation. No buyer wants to feel like they were pressured into making a purchase.

Not Performing Pre-Meeting Research

A blunder often made by the lazy or overconfident salesperson. Of course, you’re busy. But once you’ve finally connected with a prospective client and have scheduled a meeting, you’d be a fool to go in unprepared. You only have a limited amount of time to make the sale during that meeting, so why would you spend all of your time learning fundamental information that you should have already learned through pre-meeting research? Don’t waste your time or your prospect’s time.

Talking Too Much

Many salespeople, especially the nervous ones, talk incessantly when they’re with prospective customers. They gush about the product, its features, the company’s awards and stats, and anything else they can think of. They create presentations that take up the entire length of the meeting. Bad idea. You should be letting the prospect do the majority of the talking. That’s how you’ll learn critical information that will help you sell better. Plus, you’ll just end up boring your client if you won’t stop talking.

Discussing Features, Not Benefits

Prospects don’t really care much about the actual product or service. They don’t care about the many features it has. What they want to hear about are the benefits of using that product or service. They want to know that it will solve a problem, meet a need, or quench a desire.

Not Asking for the Sale

It’s amazing how many people will buy from you if you just ask them to. But many salespeople simply forget to ask for the sale outright. They get nervous. They don’t want to seem pushy or rude. They don’t want to turn the casual conversation into an awkward one. But you’re a salesperson. Selling is what you do. You are expected to ask for the commitment.

Selling after You’ve Closed the Deal

You’ve asked for the sale. The customer has said yes! So why are you still selling? The more you talk at this point, the more chances you’re giving the customer to change his mind. You might say something stupid that makes him doubt his decision. There’s no reason to keep talking about the product or service and how great it is if you’ve already closed the sale. Just take the order.

Rhys Metler

Rhys is a tenacious, top performing Senior Sales Recruiter with 15+ years of focused experience in the Digital Media, Mobile, Software, Technology and B2B verticals. He has a successful track record of headhunting top performing sales candidates for some of the most exciting brands in North America. He is a Certified Recruitment Specialist (CRS) and has expert experience in prospecting new business, client retention/renewals and managing top performing sales and recruitment teams. Rhys enjoys spending quality time with his wife, son, and daughters, BBQing on a hot summer day and tropical vacations.

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