Sales Mistakes 101: Mistakes To Avoid By Sales People
Often, the success of a sales strategy depends on the salesperson handling the sales.
According to W. Clement Stone, “Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman — not the attitude of the prospect.” Though there can be other miscellaneous factors that might drive the sales, it can’t be ignored that a salesperson has a major role to play in bringing in more conversion.
We as humans are prone to make mistakes, and it can’t be denied that it will never happen again. However, we can take measures to ensure that we do not commit the same or common mistakes that others have made. This applies to sales as well, where a human error can cause a huge loss to the company.
In this blog, we have listed some of the common sales mistakes that sales representatives normally tend to make and how to avoid them effortlessly with vigilance.
What are some common sales mistakes?
- Talking more than required
- Selling when not needed
- Arguing with the prospects
- No proper plan of action
- Failure in handling objections
- Being Too Pushy
- Revealing Too Much Information
Talking More Than Required
I’m sure you must have across instances where people stress the importance of listening. A good listener is attentive, likable, and has a better understanding of customer requirements. When people look out for solutions that solve their problems, they wouldn’t sign up for a product when they don’t need it.
So, the first golden rule that a salesperson should follow is to quit talking and start listening. People like it when someone listens to their problem. A salesperson can use this as an opportunity to understand the lead better, determine their product requirements, weigh if their product is what they are looking for, and strategize their sales. By this, they can effortlessly make the lead become a prospect and purchase your products.
Selling When Not Needed
You can never make a person buy your product unless they need it. This is something that every salesperson must realize. When you sell your products to those who have no scope of buying them, it will just exhaust your time and energy. At the end of the day, a sense of failure and you might end up regretting the action.
Not all leads are potential customers. The leads can go either way, where they might end up becoming your customer or else turn out to be a bad lead. Once you realize that, you will quit worrying over losing leads that have zero probability of purchasing your products and services while focusing more on potential customers.
Arguing With The Prospects
Arguing is one of the worst traits of a salesperson. It leads to bad results and creates a bad reputation for your company. The salesperson is the firsthand representative of any company. Hence, you have to be cautious while interacting with leads, prospects, or customers and make sure that you inculcate a good reputation of your company in the person’s mind.
Your prospect could be unreasonable or have come across incorrect information. When you probe into it, there is a higher chance of getting into an argument. The best option here is to question professionally on their concerns and if you feel that it will lead to nowhere, end the conversation smoothly without much hustle.
No Proper Plan Of Action
What is the end goal of a sales call? The main goal is to increase sales conversions. One of the habits of successful sales professionals is they often try to solve the problems of the prospects and customers. They create a sales strategy that is mostly solution-oriented rather than sales conversions. Hence, they are capable of handling any prospect.
One of the prime characteristics is to have a detailed sales strategy with a neat plan right from capturing the leads. A clear sales structure helps to avoid the biggest sales mistakes and improve the overall sales conversion. This also assists businesses in filtering out the most suitable leads while avoiding bad leads.
Failure in handling objections
Nobody likes ‘No’ as an answer. Though customers have the right to say no as an answer, not all sales representatives have the ability to accept it. However, sales objections are a common part of the sales cycle. Sales representatives should be trained in objection handling. Overcoming objections in sales must be a basic characteristic of sales teams.
Prospects may have multiple reasons for objecting to your product. It could be that they are unable to find what they are looking for in your product. At the end of the day, you might realize that they are not the right fit for your company. In such instances, there is no point in creating resentment or getting angry. You should be open-minded and embrace it with empathy.
Being Too Pushy
Sometimes, there are instances when a sales rep comes out to be too pushy. They could be under pressure to complete their sales target and this will make them force the customers to purchase your products. However, customers don’t encourage it. In case of extreme cases, they report the sales rep to the company.
So, “How to sell without being pushy?” The sales rep has to first question oneself if their actions are tolerable and if it is irritating. They should structure their sales pitch, understand the disadvantages, give time to the prospect, and ensure timely follow-ups without being too aggressive. Give them a sense of confidence that you are available to answer their queries.
Revealing Too Much Information
What is the advantage of giving much information if there is no chance of the prospects purchasing it? According to a study, 57% of a client’s decision is made before they ever pick up a phone to speak to you or any supplier. Nowadays, every piece of information is available at the fingertips of the general audience. So, sales representatives need not do much research.
Sales representatives make the mistake of selling the features and not their applications. To sell the benefits, firstly, you have to understand the problems that the prospects are facing. Once you get to know what their problems are, you can automatically list down the advantages of your products and map them with your features.
Conclusion
The main aim of sales representatives is to increase sales conversions and decrease the probability of losing potential customers. However, a detailed strategy must be put in place to properly track the leads and monitor the performance of salespeople. Apptivo has advanced customer relationship management solutions that assist salespeople in overcoming the problems that they come across during sales. By utilizing an integrated solution like Apptivo, you can effortlessly keep track of all the prospects and overcome the common sales mistakes that the sales reps come across during different sales cycles. The sales managers can keep track of the activities of their sales teams right from their desktops, allocate appropriate resources, and avoid redundancy in workflow management.
