TOW#559 - The 10 most common mistakes of salespeople
Everyone who knows me will tell you that by nature I may be all kinds of things, but one thing I’m not is negative. However, sometimes some people think the best way to get attention and point out certain things is precisely through negativity.
I’ve worked with many sales teams, managers and executives. From my conversations with all of them, I’ve noticed a pattern of behaviour that badly affects sales outcomes, i.e. different sales situations. What follows are the 10 most common mistakes that happen to everyone — and when I say everyone, I mean regardless of sales experience.
But before I write and briefly explain these mistakes, I’d like to draw your attention to one more thing, which may make someone from the field of psychology want to join me in my research (please write me a private message if you’re that person). The research would be to find the reasons for all the mistakes — I always say, if we know the reason, then it’s easier to cope with the outcome — or in other words, I’m looking for answers to the question “WHY?”.
Oh yes, and one more thing… although for some mistakes it seems that the reason can be found very easily (like laziness for example), I’m looking for a slightly deeper analysis of this whole thing. So, colleagues in psychology, I’m waiting for you.
They say that these are the 10 mistakes that top salespeople must never allow themselves to make. So let’s start in order:
1) Neglecting the importance of knowing more of the buyer’s employees — often the focus is only on the one you’re communicating with in order to make a sale
Don’t deceive yourselves. In the same way that one swallow doesn’t make a spring, one person doesn’t carry a company of, for example, 100 or more people. Your contact won’t necessarily stay in that company forever, and if you don’t know anyone else, it’ll ‘smack you in the face’. This is one of the classic mistakes where you make friends with a person, you get so close that work falls into the background, you spend weekends together and so on… and then, one day, that person leaves that company… and they only tell you after they’ve signed their new contract and secured their livelihood — does this ring a bell?
And what happens then? You go back to the company and the only one who recognises you is the person at the entrance (if there is one) and almost no one else… and those who do recognise you point their finger at you, thinking to themselves something like: “that’s the friend of the traitor who went to our competition”… and now you’ve got to try to continue where you left off. Therefore, try to get to know a company and its employees… that is, entire sectors — so at least they know who you are, where you come from and what you actually do.
2) Writing down key thoughts during meetings with clients
You might roll your eyes and say — yeah, I already do that… but the question is, how many of you still do it?! Nobody’s memory is perfect, and today there’s no excuse for ‘hearsay’ when it comes to serious things. Write down, with the permission on the other side, and record everything you hear and see. In the long run, the information will pay you back big time, no matter how trivial it may seem at the time.
As a test, record any potentially ‘frivolous’ conversation, for the purpose of analysing it, and you’ll be surprised that what you hear isn’t actually what you heard — it sounds confusing, but it often really turns out that way. When we talk, we’re focused on what we want to say, so we often put what we want to say ‘into the mouth’ of the other person. I’m telling you this from my own experience, and it happens to me to this very day, despite knowing all of this… I console myself with the fact that, if nothing else, I at least became aware of it.
3) Not knowing your customer’s buyers
Everyone has a customer that they’re selling something to — a service or a product, right? The question is, how can you help your client to better help their clients? I’ll be brutally honest here, and say something that may hurt someone, but you won’t be perceived as a top strategic salesperson unless you know your customers well — and to know your customers means to know (understand) them and their customers.
4) Not knowing the goals of your customer’s business
The point here is not to know the details of their business plan, but to know the basic directions in which the business is developing. For example, you won’t offer someone a machine or device that will solve the challenges of their current situation if in the next year they’re planning a restructuring where they won’t need such a device. This is basic, and yet there are too many salespeople who have no idea what is in their customers’ business plans.
5) Not knowing the personal motivators and goals of the people you’re selling to
And no, we’re not talking here about bribery and corruption — in case anyone’s wondering. We’re all human beings with our own set of values, goals and motivators. It’s difficult to sell something to someone unless you know what moves that person. For example, you’ll find it hard to sell anything in plastic packaging to someone who thinks ‘green’. Seriously, if you were to give a person with a value system like that a present in a branded plastic bag, it could be completely misinterpreted.
6) Lack of a plan — it’s not just about the sales call that you’ll make, but the lack of a plan for the month, quarter and year that you plan to spend with your customer
Anyone can sell — ONCE. Unfortunately, success in sales is not based on just ONE sale. Success in sales is a long-term relationship that benefits both parties, and to do that, you need a plan. At first those plans will be long, tedious and a little clumsy, not to mention complicated. With experience, they become simple and understandable, because in addition to numbers and letters, they also include emotions, i.e. understanding (not to say predicting) human behaviour as one of the parameters that will influence the outcome of the plan.
7) Bad internal reporting — not sharing timely information about customers with colleagues in their own company
Poor salespeople think they can fly solo. I always say that selling is very complex and individual, and that it is subject to human nature. The more you grow, the more important the involvement of other people in a firm becomes; for example, you promise your customer deferred payment, but forget to pass that information internally to the Department of Finance and Accounting. The buyer then gets an invoice for immediate payment, gets angry, writes some nasty emails, which leads to internal tension and a back and forth about who said what, then egos get involved and the CFO says “this simply won’t do!”, then a few days of tension, a tonne of people get put in CC in an e-mail, and they all need to give their opinion… Long story short, it usually all gets sorted in the end, but the point is: just look at how much one piece of wrong information, or more precisely information not shared properly, can waste our time, i.e. affect the productivity of an entire company.
8) Not asking difficult questions that uncover the real challenges that customers face, that is, not taking enough time to help them to solve those issues
Superficial discussions won’t take you far, and worst of all, a relationship that is purely superficial usually results in a low quality and low value sale. Therefore, dare to ask a difficult question from time to time, and figure out the real challenges that the buyer is facing, that is, try to solve them. All of a sudden, you’ll be offering real value, which will make the issue of the price fall away into the background.
9) Failing to tell the truth when a problem arises, i.e. when they’re responsible for the specific problem
We’ve all heard of an alibi. Bad salespeople very quickly shift the blame to someone else and forget that they are the mirror (ambassadors) of their company. In other words, if someone inside the company screws something up, as in they didn’t do something as agreed, in the eyes of the customer I, as the representative of that company, am responsible for solving it. Bad salespeople will often produce an alibi, such as that someone else messed up, and that they have nothing to do with it. I like to call it “IT’S NOTHING TO DO WITH ME” syndrome… though you may also come across it as “I SENT THE EMAIL” syndrome 😊.
10) Forgetting to leave their EGO at the door when meeting with a client
It’s important to have an ego. It moves you forward and plays a part in building competitiveness, but if it goes too far it becomes a stumbling block. When you let your ego take over, you automatically stop listening, you stop being concerned, and most of all you lose control of the sales process which you’re trying to steer in the right direction. There’s a saying: “feeding the ego means starving wisdom — the choice is yours.” Needless to say, my advice is: “Be wise”.
Smile & Sell
CEO & Owner at Sorbel Group
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