What Not to Do in B2B Sales? — 7 Signs You’re About to Kill the Deal

Winning isn’t getting ahead of others. It’s getting ahead of yourself ~ Roger Staubach

Sales was always a tough job. In turbulent times, it can be even worse.?

B2B Sales has several challenges and sales people make it tougher for themselves by making avoidable mistakes.

It takes both talent and skill to be a really good sales person. Just like in sports, in order to reach mastery in sales you need to practice, take risks, make mistakes and learn from them.

However, there are a number of common missteps that almost everyone takes during their sales career and I’m no different as I myself made a lot of avoidable mistakes.

Trying to win a sale, salespeople tend to exaggerate, overestimate, misinterpret, and otherwise miss the mark.

To make your road to a perfect sale a bit easier, here is a cheat-sheet that will help you avoid 10 mistakes that most salespeople make.

The ultimate truth is buyers want to feel optimistic about who they’re purchasing from and about the transaction they’ve just made. Mastering the most successful B2B sales tactics can assist in gaining trust from clients and winning deals.?

There are so many factors that can stand in the way of exceptional B2B sales performance—poor leadership, lack of organisation, no sales process—the list goes on.

While some of these problems are easily recognizable, some of the most common obstacles that stand in the way of your success are hard to identify. Some of the common sales problems are things sales teams might not even know you’re facing.

Here are the most frequent B2B sales mistakes sales teams have to stop making to close more deals in the coming months.

Mistake #1: Selling instead of building relationships

Mistake #2: Focusing on your product, not the prospect’s needs

Mistake #3: Rushing the client

Mistake #4: Being disorganised and inconsistent

Mistake #5: Making promises you can’t keep

Mistake #6: Not listening and talking too much

Mistake #7: Focusing on price not value

Mistake #8: Not being ready to overcome objections

Mistake #9: Not getting access to decision-makers

Mistake #10: Failing to Align with Other Departments

Let's dive deeper into each of the mistakes.

Mistake #1: Selling instead of building relationships

Nobody, I mean nobody I know wants to be sold to – Customers want to feel they’re making a choice, not being sold your product or service.? Therefore the most efficient B2B sales strategy is to stop selling and start building relationships..

The best way is to think about your sales conversations, is always to think in terms of identifying problems and suggesting solutions. Engage your prospective customers in a conversation about their business and their needs.?

Mistake #2: Focusing on your product, not the prospect’s needs

You’ve spent months, even years developing and marketing your product. But the harsh reality is that prospects aren’t interested in what you have to sell. They’re interested in what your product or service can do for them.? Once you’ve discovered a need your customer wants to address, you can respond with your best solution to meet it. But instead of selling your product’s features, focus on the benefits it will bring to the prospect.? Keep your presentation short and simple. Prospects should be able to understand immediately what you can do for them and why they should do business with you.

Mistake #3: Rushing the client

While it’s always a good idea to ask your prospects for a next step and follow up after each meeting, you also need to give people enough time to consider your proposal. A pushy salesperson is always a turn off.? When it does come time to follow up, strive to understand your customer’s hesitations and be ready to respond to any objections they might have.??

Mistake #4: Being disorganised and inconsistent

Scheduling meetings with prospects without a structured sales approach will backfire. Successful salespeople are disciplined when it comes to generating leads and adding prospects to their list on a weekly basis.? Make sure your prospects are apt to buy your product and organize leads into categories: excellent, average or weak. Build a calendar for contacting potential customers based on their needs and the interest they expressed in your offering.

Mistake #5: Making promises you can’t keep

One of the biggest B2B sales mistakes salespeople make is to overpromise in order to get a deal. Creating expectations you can’t fulfil when time comes to deliver the product or service will frustrate your customers. That will keep them from coming back for repeat business and hurt your reputation in the market. ? Make it clear to your salespeople how far they can go when discussing your product with prospects.? By becoming a trusted advisor who asks questions and listens closely to what prospects have to say, you’re setting the stage for a lasting customer relationship. Not only have you helped them clarify a problem, you’ve offered a solution to fix it.

Overpromising and under delivering equals mere lying in business.

No matter how much you want to sell, lying is a bad way to start any relationship. Exaggerating your product or service capabilities, or even worse – hiding limitations or special conditions, will not take you far.

Think of it – would you want to spend your money on lies? I bet – no.

But how do you sell then? Here are two suggestions:

Instead of over-promising, let the prospects sell to themselves. You can do it by asking the right questions that’ll gently push the prospect to the right direction. In the end, they’ll convince themselves that they need your product.

Another way is particularly suitable for the free trial stage. To make sure your prospects are pleasantly surprised, you can actually under promise and over deliver. If the expectations are low, but the product can actually do more, then prospects will be blown away with the experience they get. This will help you win them over during the next sale stage.

All in all – it's better to sell nothing, than to make a dishonest sale. Because if your customers later find out about a problem you “forgot to mention”, you will not only lose the customer, but also your reputation and further sales.

Mistake #6: Not listening and talking too much

When you’re trying to sell something, instinctively you want to talk a lot: passionately describe the benefits and the great features of your offering, flaunt your knowledge and … push, push, push.? But that’s not entirely effective. Pushy salespeople don’t go far. Considerate ones do. And let’s be honest – you’re not the only one selling!? Instead, listen and ask more open-ended questions. In fact, your listening-talking ratio should be 60/40.? A study shows that top-closing professionals in B2B sales on average speak only 43% of the time, allowing prospects to speak 57% of the time.

Mistake #7: Focusing on price not value

People buy value, not price.? If you believe that the price will sell the product, you’re trapped in an illusion. And it’s time to snap out of it. First, heavily relying on low prices, offering discounts here and there, giving out special promotions, will only get you instant, but not long-term gratification – bargain hunters. This type of customer will buy from you, but will run away the moment somebody else tempts them with a bigger discount.? Do you really need that?? Second, even though price is traditionally viewed as a decisive factor and almost all customers demand lower prices, they won’t buy a product just because it’s cheap. They will buy a product that is valuable for them. And if this value is substantial, all customers will pay a bigger price.? All you need to do is remind the prospect that buying cheap often results in poor quality and higher costs in the long term. Buying more expensive quality means more value and lower costs down the road.

Mistake #8: Not being ready to overcome objections

Nobody likes to get “No” for an answer.

However, allowing the customers to say “No” has its benefits. This way you increase the value of “Yes” when the time is right. Repeated rejections only increase the buying decision when the customer finally sees what they like.

For example, real estate agents use this trick a lot: they first show not so great houses, and keep the really good one for dessert. After saying “No” too many times, saying “Yes” comes as a relief!

Dealing with objections in sales is truly a form of art. You have to stay cool, show that you understand their concerns and see their point of view, always answer honestly, respectfully and succinctly. And never-ever use the phrase: “As I said before” when dealing with “annoying” objections. That’s just a sale-killer. Instead, acknowledge the hostile question or objection as a valid point, rephrase it, and … use some humor.

Finally, if nothing works – maybe the prospect you are trying to sell to is not a good fit for you? The ability to timely notice and abandon a sale with low closing probability is a very important skill too. After all, studies show that at least 50% of prospects are typically not a good fit for what you sell.

Mistake #9: Not getting access to decision-makers

You can’t just sell to anyone.

To close a deal, you need to deal with the people who are qualified to make a purchasing decision. Otherwise, you will simply waste your time.

The sooner you are able to meet with decision-makers, the more effective the outcome will be. During this stage you can agree on expectations, build a business case that shows the ROI, come up with a proposal and devise a plan of actions. That’s why this stage is very important. The sooner you get to talk to the decision-maker, then more chances you have to close a deal.

Mistake #10: Failing to Align with Other Departments

After doing all the hard work of closing a deal, sales people make this often repeated mistake of not aligning with other departments both within their company and the customer’s side.

So why is it important to align business departments?????

The short answer is the success of a deal and long-term business with a customer is dependent on the business's internal workings and this is directly related to departmental alignment. For starters, you could have untapped revenue due to unaligned departments. The success or failure of a company has a lot to do with your internal operations. If you do not make sure the different departments are well aligned for collaboration it is time for a health check-up on your business!?

Conclusion

Whether you’re new to B2B sales or a sales veteran, there’s always room for improvement. If your performance has hit a standstill, evaluate your sales process to see if you’re struggling with one of these ten mistakes listed above. You’ll be glad you did.

The B2B sales cycle is a long journey which requires patience and perseverance. A lead you talk with today may not be ready to buy until the following year. If you made a mistake, analyze it and figure out what went wrong; errors teach you more than achievements.??

Closing significant deals demands salespeople to have faith in their product, method, and themselves. It’s also helpful to have a few surprises in one’s pocket.

Mistakes happen. So, don’t be hard on yourself if any item from this list rings a bell.? One of the reasons sales people continue to make the same sales mistakes is because they are using the same, old sales playbook.? And that playbook doesn’t work anymore!? Modern buyers have changed, and so did their buying behaviours. B2B buyers have access to all the information there is on products or services and make extensive research before they even approach the sales person. And 57% of decisions are made before the buyers even pick up a phone to speak to a sales person!

Keep up with the times !

But the list doesn’t stop there, as the new sales playbook is evolving each day. If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of the new sales techniques, you need to keep up with modern technology and continuously learn about what’s new in the fascinating world of sales.