9 years ago
April 18, 2016

Are You Making These 7 Sales Mistakes?

No matter how skilled or experienced you are as a sales rep, making these seven sales mistakes can still cost you the sale. Make sure to avoid them.

Rhys Metler

Are_You_Making_These_7_Sales_Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. It’s just part of being human. But sales mistakes can have devastating consequences. They could cause you to lose the sale, which means losing revenue for your business. They could also hurt your own self-confidence as well as the confidence of your sales managers, coworkers, and customers.

Naturally, you want to avoid the repercussions from sales mistakes at all cost. They’re just not good for business. But how can you make sure you avoid them? By identifying sales mistakes ahead of time, so you can prevent yourself from making them to begin with. It’s better to be proactive than to try to fix your sales mistakes after the fact.

Here are seven of the most common but devastating sales mistakes that you could make. Keep them in mind for the future.

1. Wasting Time on Unqualified Leads

Qualifying leads is key to ensuring maximum productivity and sales. Not every lead deserves to be followed up on. If someone just isn’t ready to buy yet, you shouldn’t be wasting your time until they take a specific action that warrants your call. Monitoring and tracking data is key to ensuring that you’re only spending your valuable time on the leads most likely to buy.

2. Not Continuously Prospecting

If you’re only selling to current customers, you’re never going to increase revenue or your customer base. Your pipeline should never be dry. It should be full of new prospects for you to try to sell to. Though prospecting is one of the least enjoyable tasks, it’s still critical.

3. Failing to Do Pre-Meeting Research

The overconfident, overworked, and new salespeople often make this mistake. They go into a meeting unprepared, having not researched the company or buyer ahead of time. What does this get you? It lowers your buyer’s confidence in you and it means you’ll be wasting your precious meeting learning facts that you could have learned about on the internet.

4. Talking Too Much

Maybe you’re nervous. Maybe you’re trying too hard to make the sale. Maybe you’re not confident in your products or services so you’re trying too hard to convince your buyer—and yourself—that purchasing is a good idea. No matter the reason, talking too much can bore your buyer or make him believe that you don’t care about his unique wants and needs, only your own.

5. Not Asking Questions

If you are talking during the meeting after your quick pitch, it should be to ask questions. That’s how you’re going to learn more about your prospect, what his problem is, how he’s looking to solve it, and what you can do to make the sale. Questions also show that you care.

6. Being Pushy or Aggressive

One of the most detrimental sales mistakes you can make is to be pushy, demanding, or aggressive with a client. Buyers innately do not trust salespeople, so it’s up to you to build trust and credibility to change their mindsets. Being aggressive in your sales tactics will only push them away more and cost you the sale. And it will leave a sour taste in their mouths, so you can say goodbye to future business, too.

7. Failing to Ask for the Sale

For some reason, many salespeople neglect to ask for the sale at the end of a meeting. They don’t want to turn a pleasant conversation into an awkward moment by asking for it. But, really, that’s what you’re there for and you both know it. If your buyer is expressing interest, it’s time to stop talking and straight up ask for the sale. Take charge and do what you went there to do. Not asking for the sale is one of the biggest reasons why salespeople often don’t meet their targets.

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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