As a sales professional with any level of experience, there are several mistakes that, once made, turn even a promising sale into an uphill climb. These seven deadly sins of selling are easy to make, even by an experienced professional, so by recognizing the sins, you can create a plan to avoid them so that your future meetings will be more successful.

 

To help sales professionals, here are the seven deadly sins of sales and how they impact the customer and their willingness to make a commitment to a sale.

 

1. Wasting the customer’s time

Small talk, repetition, redundancy and “fluff” in the conversation is going to turn off prospective buyers, particularly if you are selling into the C-suite. Keep the sales pitch streamlined and specific to avoid this sin.

 

2. Not being fully prepared

There is no excuse today with information readily available online and in social media to not be prepared for your customer, the business, and trends in their industry. Of course, you also need to know your product. Take the time to do some extra research and refresh your knowledge of the products and services. 

 

3. Telling rather than selling

Selling is about filling a need, solving a problem and creating a benefit in the mind of the customer. Just reciting facts and numbers won’t accomplish this goal.

 

4. Personal accountability

Take the time to review your sales process and know what you are going to do in the sales meeting. Be accountable to yourself for setting goals and achieving them.

 

5. Lose faster (Get to Next)

don’t dwell on a point once it is made. Engage the customer or client, explore the possibilities of the product or service as a solution and move on to the next part of the process. Bogging down will lose momentum and interest.

 

6. Don’t internalize rejection

Avoid feeling personally rejected with a “no.” Instead, look towards the next meeting and plan for a new, creative approach to working with that client based on new information gleaned from this meeting.

 

7. Close at every customer touch point

Don’t wait until the end to close an order. Close and confirm on all points of agreement as they occur in the meeting and the conversation.

 

Another key factor to remember is that listening is a critical part of sales. By listening to the customer, you will gain insight into their needs and problems, helping you to avoid several of these deadly sins.

 

At The Sales Coaching Institute, we provide training and support for new and experienced sales professionals. To find out more, visit us online at salescoach.us.

Breaking Your Bad Sales Habits Is Possible

 

A habit is something that you start frequently doing, whether you were taught it or learned by trial and error. Many salespeople get into the habit of doing the wrong things, whether they realize it or not. If you wonder about bad sales habits and breaking them, you’re not alone. Many top salespeople have worried that they’re falling into a rut or doing the wrong things.

 

Poor/No Follow Up

 

One of the biggest bad sales habits includes not following up after the call or doing so incorrectly. Breaking this habit is something that should work hard on as soon as you notice that you’re slipping. Why would you bother to start something if you weren’t going to finish it? The follow-up is how you gain control. If someone doesn’t seem that interested, a follow-up could be just what they need to decide to buy.

 

Related Article: The Power of Positive Sales Habits

Busyness Instead Of Business

Almost everyone knows how to seem busy without doing anything. You may act like you’re cleaning the equipment at a fast-food restaurant, but you’re really leaned over playing with your smartphone. Every moment of your work day should be productive, excepting breaks and lunch hours, of course. Time is precious, and most people squander it away, not realizing how much it hurts their productivity and output, as well as their income.

Comfort Zone

There are times to be within your comfort zone and times to get a little uncomfortable in selling. However, always selling inside your comfort zone is just one of many bad sales habits that should be broken. You can’t achieve progress or growth if you never branch out and expand your mind. There are times when you want to work within the comfort zone, but it’s just as important to realize when to step outside the area and get a little uncomfortable.

Related Article: How Successful Sales People Grow

 
Contact us today if you are interested in breaking your bad sales habits for good.
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If you were asked to list top professionals in the sales field in their industry and then asked those professionals to list their biggest influencers, you may be surprised to find out who makes it on those lists.

One name you may not expect to see is General George S. Patton. The methods he used to lead in the military can be transferred across lines to be extremely useful in the sales field. Just like Sun Tzu The Art of War is commonly referred to in the world of business.

General George Smith Patton Jr. (November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945) was a senior officer of the United States Army who is best known for his leadership of the U.S. Third Army in France and Germany following the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

To see how General Patton would set up a sales team for success, consider his principles of command for every battle and every campaign he entered.

• Be a Leader
  • Patton understood that to be an effective leader you had to truly be in command. This meant to make a plan and take responsibility for ensuring everyone understood and could be successful at his or her job on the team.
• Make Accountability Mandatory
  • Everyone under Patton had to accept accountability for the tasks they were assigned. There was no passing the buck; rather the buck stopped here when it came to assessing both failures and successes.
• Always Delegate
  • Patton was not a micro-manager. Instead, he used officers (supervisors and managers) to carry out the required tasks. If the manager is bogged down in the minuscule details there is no time to plan, organize and set the roadmap to the big picture goal.
• Anticipate Problems
  • Proactivity looking for weak links or areas where there is or could be poor performance, problems are quickly recognized, corrected and moved past. This is very different than reacting to poor numbers or sales process problems after the results are tallied.

Finally, General Patton saw everyone, including himself, as replaceable. For sales, this means actively encouraging the team to constantly keep growing, developing and challenging themselves to do better and achieve more.

Related Article: Ronald Reagan’s Top 5 Motivational Quotes For Sales Professionals

The Sales Coaching Institute works with sales leaders and sales teams to develop basic and advanced sales skills to boost sales and exceed goals. Click here to learn more.

Two sales productivity maxims I have lived by and sold to is more relevant and true now than ever before.

The maxim states…

1. “Sales is the highest paying hard work and the lowest paying easy work”

2. “The most productive and successful salespeople do all non-sales related activities between 6:00 AM to 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM – 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM is invested in meeting with a legitimate prospect who has a need, desire, financial capacity and authority to purchase your product or service.”

So what is the definition of “non-sales related activities”?

Non-sales related activities include non-critical emails, social media updates, client research, proposal development, and completion etc – anything that is not in support of “getting belly-to-belly with a prospect or current client. The prospects or clients you are striving to meet with should have net new revenue opportunities that will culminate in a sale in the next 30 to 90 days.

Related Article: Survive & Thrive With A Positive Mental Attitude

The 6:00 AM start of the sales day mindset is a choice and will manifest into quota killing reality if practiced diligently daily. The best sales professionals are not always the ones with the most talent and highest IQ’s, they are the ones with the can-do attitude. I’ll take can do over IQ any day. These sales people are willing to make choices that others are not willing to make. 6:00 AM then becomes a choice to do the hard things over the easy things.

Your sales journey of success starts with the right mindset and choices you make on a daily basis because how we live our sales days determines how we live our sales lives!

 

Time is money and if you spend your time wisely, you can enjoy your career and your life. Living with a high standard of sales productivity maxims helps hold you accountable for your success and your failures. But remember, no-one every succeeded without failing first.

 

• Related Article: What To Do When You Fail
• Related Article: Sales Rules To Live By

 

Good luck & good selling!

The Sales Coaching Institute