What are the most common sales mistakes and how do you avoid them?

Ever heard the saying "over familiarity breeds contempt". Thinking you know all the in and out of your client can sabotage your chances of negotiating better deals and being taken for granted. Knowing when to let down your guard and when to be professional is a honed tactic that comes with experience. Your supposed most trusted client can switch on you because business is business after all. Some clients are equipped with research and experience in your field of sales so putting up an attitude of knowing it all could hurt your chances of landing mega deals. You can be original and still keep your content and services premium.

It's not only imperative that you listen to your clients, but when you present a solution or product to your clients, their mind actually starts changing. Your client goes into defensive mode, and for good reason. If you haven't spent the time in discovery, finding out exactly what your clients problem is that needs to be solved, you shouldn't be selling anything. Many sales people talk themselves out of a sale by presenting or selling too early. It takes discipline to hold back your recommendations, but it's vital for your success. Build the relationship with your client and understand their needs fully. It's only at this point that you can add real value and make a trusted recommendation that is best for the client.

One thing I've found helpful is to practice the art of active listening. Ask open-ended questions and listen to the answer. If they give you an open-ended answer, it's imperative to dig deeper and ask for clarification on the answer. Constantly practice curiosity! Ask questions first that probe for a problem. For ex, "Tell me a little bit about..." or "Help me understand...." Then ask questions that dig deeper into the process of how they are doing something that your product could solve. For example, "Walk me through what happens when...." Once they explain the need or pain, ask questions that provoke them to think about things from a new perspective. For ex, "Have you considered..." Remember, Be Curious a little longer.

Na minha experiência percebo que o erro de n?o ouvir o cliente come?a no controle da ansiedade e da expectativa criada sem antes mesmo de ouvir o que seu cliente tem a dizer. O cliente espera que você fique atento ao que ele tem a falar e tenha a certeza que você compreendeu a sua dor/problema. A insight para n?o cometer esse erro é: Pratique a Empatia!

Actually, I can't entirely agree with BANT. You do need to make sure you are reaching out to the right ICP, however through discovery you can ask the right questions and uncover the impact to a future state that can push the budget to be created and the timeline to be moved up. People don't know what they don't know. I have often found that you can help the customer realize the impact of a solution to a problem from a new perspective that flips the BANT structure on its head. Authority is important, however if your solutions solves for a problem in a major way, you will be put in front of authority as well. If your solution aligns to the industry and ICP, while solving for a problem with a large impact, the BANT will work itself out.

When following up with prospects, time is of the essence. In my industry, mortgage banking, an increasing number of home loan borrowers are finding lenders online and once a prospect reaches out, every second counts. Recent research from Zillow notes that responding within five minutes can dramatically increase your chances of success. Conversely, the odds of qualifying an online lead decreases by 400% if contacted 10 minutes after initial contact vs. five minutes. That’s a significant difference most mortgage loan sales professionals cannot afford to ignore.

In my experience, "proper" follow-up is essential. You MUST provide value in every follow-up. Whether it is sharing an article you found insightful that could impact the customer, a customer story, or some other piece of information they would appreciate. Follow-up should never be a subject line that says "Follow Up" and the email saying "I just wanted to follow up..." This type of follow-up is focused on you and not the customer. Remember great follow-up is focused on the customer. That will build the trust and rapport which will lead to the sale.

Few sales reps are good at both prospecting and closing. Often, the breakdowns in the follow-up result from a lack of prep and organization and not knowing who to contact and when. Leveraging a robust CRM platform can typically help there. Many BDRs and AEs just go through the motions of following up. They are not strategic and intentional on what they are trying to accomplish with the follow-up interaction and they usually struggle to get a hold of the prospect because they didn't agree to a next step at the end of the preceding call. Having a commitment objective and clear next step agreed to at the end of every touchpoint of the sales cycle will make the follow-up process much smoother and mitigate the risk of prospects vanishing.

The more reps the better when it comes to objection handling. Top sellers stay on top of their craft. They keep a running inventory of the sales objections that they commonly receive, and thus they are more prepared to address them when they arise. They anticipate them. They constantly practice and role-play on how to handle them. They enjoy getting them because they know they are that much closer to winning the sale. In some cases, they will even proactively bring them up so that they don't appear at the eleventh hour.

In my experience, you need to do 2 things to be good with objections. The first is that you need to identify the objections that may come up and understand how to address them. I have found that if you get together with another AE/Seller and both role play this, it is the best way to put into practice handling objections. The second thing is to call out the elephant in the room if you think the customer may have an objection. Label them by saying, "It looks like you are unsure of..." Let them tell you if you are right or wrong, but you will find out the true objection and then have the opportunity to address it. Also by calling it out, you will build trust by not trying to avoid it.

In my experience, the customer rarely works on your timeline to close a sale...they work on theirs. Obviously, you can incentivize them to try to do it earlier, however, if you have identified a big enough impact on the future state of what your solution will provide the customer, I find that the customer wants to close the sale. A great technique to get both of you on the same page is to create a MAP (Mutual Action Plan) that outlines the next steps and includes closing the sale as one. Now it is out in the open and the customer knows what is coming next as you both work through the plan.

In my practical sales experience, you can influence your clients but you can't control them. Don't try to control though that can get you some leverage on sales. It is an unwritten rule Everyone is not your client, some are lessons that needs to be learnt to enable you know who you are a good fit for. Don't ever imagine that some customers are just transactional and do not reward loyalty. Do your good part anyway no matter the terms and conditions.

Getting the deal across the goal line is what it's all about! So many entrepreneurs boast about how they are a strong closer when in reality they are leaving so much money on the table because they are undercharging for their services and haven't raised their prices in two years. Something to keep in mind... Also, another way to increase your sales conversions is to not just email over a bid or proposal. If you do that, you might get ghosted. To give yourself a better chance, make the evaluation, negotiation, and buying process more fun and collaborative. What I mean is to do a joint review of your proposal with the prospect. It saves time and allows you to get their input and work through issues right then and there. A win-win.

This is true. A lot of times customers are afraid to ask for a price because like most people, they are afraid to be told no. That goes for the sales person asking for profit. They become afraid to ask for profit because they also don’t want to be told no. There’s not a lot of human interaction anymore. Everything is done through Facebook or texting or LinkedIn or some other form of communication that does not require face-to-face. That’s a massive detriment at times in my opinion. They are useful techniques for people who live far away from each other, but that upfront communication, eye to eye is where there is a deficiency. You need to teach your people to be confident and personal.

You can use techniques to attempt to manipulate the client’s decision making timeline, but if you have properly built the relationship, and you are on the same side of the desk, closing is just part of the needs fulfillment process. Once the agreement is made on a solution, the natural conversation is to determine implementation timeline, and, well, case closed. There’s not much room for buyers remorse in this relationship, standing upon sincerity and partnership.

Referrals should not be your sole revenue source, but they should be a cornerstone of your customer-driven growth strategy. Many companies that are fortunate enough to obtain a steady inflow of referrals are still unable to capitalize. In many cases, it's because their referral tracking and outreach process (really their entire end-to-end sales process) is broken, decentralized, and far too complex. The lack of urgency and poor follow-up with referred prospects results in missed opportunities and referral sources drying up quickly. As non-worked, delayed, and lost referrals accumulate, an industry leader can quickly drop back to the pack by the end of the next quarter. Don't let that happen to you!