Top Sales Mistakes in LinkedIn: Why You Failed Generating Leads

Everyone thought they are good salesman, including me, but it is not how good you think your methods are and it is how many mistakes you will make along the way. Not to diminish those sales seminar where you get so blindly motivated to think you are about to be casted in The Wolf of Wall Street 2, but basically they teaches the same thing. You will lose those motivations after a week and most of the seminar content after a month. One thing they didn't share with you is how much practices you need to be as good as them.

Here is the golden rule:

Doth unto others as thou wouldst hast 'em doth unto thou.

For someone who is too dull to understand that, it simply means to stop being a detestable person. Take a step back and imagine what was the worse sales experience you have encountered in your entire lifetime, and compare it with what you have been doing. Probably you would start hating yourself but unlikely it will make you change. The purpose of this article is to enlighten you with some self-awareness and not to teach you what you may have already know. There are already plenty of books and articles about sales techniques but guess what, you can't fill a cup that it thought it is full. Unconventionally, the key morale that should be interpreted in this old idiom is perceived fullness. No one will ever be full, not even Einstein, but if he thinks he is already full, then he has peaked his life.

The top mistakes made by most of you that have lost at least 70% of your sales-chance is the way you build rapport, or didn't even bother building it at all. It is psychological. Most of us irks picking up calls from an unknown number because we know the chance of it being a sales-call is downright high. You will have an immediate change of tone and mood when you realise it was a service or update call. For example:

Your package will finally be arriving today and because of the delay, we are throwing in $100 cash voucher for your next purchase.

I bet it gets you excited and you starting to fall in love with the caller. You will be going from "I have already reserved swear words for calls like this" to "I wonder what would she like to eat for our first dinner date". Look, this isn't a nature skill for most to begin with, many people out there have spent years training their EQ to handle scallywag like yourself. No matter how agitated your tone can be, they can hold their cool to rationalised the situation. This is the interesting part when you have lowered your guard and suddenly:

And by the way, we have just launched an amplifier that will perfectly complement the surround set that you have purchased from us. With the cash voucher and being our valued customer, you will get up to $500 off for this purchase, would you like me to send you more information on it?

Remember this feeling, etch it in your mind if you could. In NLP, it is called anchoring. If you like to have VIP treatment and see value in this call, your prospect will like that too. Now, what strategy are you planning to break the Berlin Wall? It will be different approaches for existing customer and cold market, but the principle never change.

Well, personally I would still take her out for a date even she revealed her true intention of this service-cum-sales call. Naturally this doesn't constitute to a sales because there is not commitment, but she just moved me up one-notch from her prospect list to opportunity list and will start to do decent follow up. Here comes another important aspect of the sales mistakes - following up. It is a huge mistake to follow up too eagerly in LinkedIn as no one will read the lengthly message you sent to their Inbox (hopefully you will still take some time to read mine). It is equally wrong to follow up after a long period of time as your prospect will thought you have forgotten about him or he is in your secondary list where you are done with all your better prospects and it is time to check the spare tire. The desired follow up period? It will be up to you to figure out based on your industry, product, strategy, rapport-built and etc.

Never treat your prospect like an idiot. Regardless how much knowledge you think he has for your company or industry - it simply doesn't matter. They can smell the stench of your intention miles away. You get frustrated that guy brushes you off even before you can state how wonderful your company and product is. Why? We are consumer 4.0 and heading 5.0 pretty soon. Thanks and no thanks to technology advancement, you are the number 2,147,483,647 person to write a sales message to your prospect and honestly, everyone is sick of it. Be original and be sincere, again BUILD RAPPORT FIRST.

Many people are desperate or thought that LinkedIn is a sea of opportunity - especially those folks who just started using the Internet and gets all flabbergasted. Sadly, this place isn't as bewildering as you hope it can be. Same as any other prospect sources, you will need time and effort to engender decent result. You are enthusiastically and frantically selling through LinkedIn because you believe in the company and it's product, and you want people to share the same idea as you. Hold your horses, the result of self-defeating is the hard truth. 99% of the people gets turn-off by your self-indulgent eagerness on your company, the 1% just enjoy a clown show because the circus is not in town. You can be passionate, but not overly-excited. Don't be a crunk, have the same energy and frequency as your prospect.

Customer wants you to understand them. You will have to let him talk, put your focus on him, agree with him, have the same wavelength as him and so on. It is rude to suddenly barge into someone's personal space and share your needs. Only Jesus will care about a stranger's needs, not you and me. Have you liked your prospect's post, endorsed him a skill, recommended him, joined the same group, commented on similar topic or performed any other LinkedIn activities to alleviate the awkwardness of surprise selling? It is worrisome if you does not realise it. Unless you are running a search engine more powerful than Google, you read my mind and know exactly what I need and when I need something, please feel free to send me an impetuous sales message. If you have not even done psychoanalysis or the simplest profiling of me, DON'T.

You are in the Apple shop trying out the funky feature of this latest iPhone, some guy nudge you and promote this piece of soap that not only effectively clean your pet's genital but also allow your dad to be a multi-millionaire in 3 years' time.

Dude, I don't have a pet and even if I have wouldn't it be weird to focus on its private? Also, my dad pass away, who else are you trying to con? It is an exaggerated but totally relevant example. Have you even established a problem and need statement from me OR built enough rapport to spill such feculence?

The fundamental about selling is never the product or company - its yourself. I know nuts about the company or product, I only know you are the reflection of it. In a far alternate universe you are the ambassador of Singapore and you are a representative at Malaysia state dinner. Being as untactful as you have always been, the tinglingly sense of impending war is imminent. Rest assure, countries in our universe chooses their ambassadors delicately.

Think about it, does people often buy because of tangible or intangible, intrinsic or extrinsic, persuaded or self-persuaded, convinced or self-convinced? You are selling the benefits, the experiences, the show-and-tells, the feelings and all the seductive value of this product - including "will I become like you since you are the salesperson" kind of idiosyncrasy. If you don't even like yourself, I doubt your prospect will like you. You need to contribute good posts and articles in LinkedIn to prove your worth. You to be exuberant and not extravagant in the market you are selling. You are the product.

Last but not least, don't be this guy in LinkedIn. There is distinguish differences between selling yourself appropriately and Jack-of-all-trades-wannabe. One reason why your prospecting fail can be amounted to your profile simply sucks. Omit all immature descriptions and titles, as I mentioned earlier people know what you are. Truly successful people do not prey around LinkedIn behaving like headless fly, and rather you should engage your target like a sniper. Stop elevating yourself with all the crap achievements that are unworthy and don't use fake testimonials - it might work if you try this 2 decades ago.