Practice makes perfect, right? Wrong. You know if you’re an athlete that perfect practice makes perfect. Nothing good happens if you do the wrong things again and again. It is the same if you’re in sales. You must do the right things and avoid doing the wrong things if you want to get better and sell more now. Here are two sales mistakes to avoid.
Sales Mistake #1. Less successful salespeople call on the wrong prospect.
You only have a limited amount of time to sell. You’ve just wasted it if you fill your schedule with people who have little prospect of buying from you. Here’s what you can do now if you want to sell more.
Examine carefully each prospect you have on your prospect list. Determine how close or far from your ideal prospect the prospect is. Do you not have an idea of who your ideal prospect is? Now is the time to determine your ideal prospect.
Your ideal prospect is the customer most likely to buy your products or services. You can determine who that customer is by looking at the types of customers you have been successful with in the past. You will be successful moving forward with the same type of customer unless you have changed something.
It’s all right –in fact preferred– when you realize that you do better selling to a specific type of person, account or industry. Instead of losing focus and thinking everyone is a prospect, you get to focus on the ones who you are more likely to be successful.
Sales Mistake #2. Less successful salespeople present too soon.
I’ve often said that sales is the transfer of enthusiasm. Just don’t be so enthusiastic that you present too soon. You present when they’ve experienced the emotions that will motivate them to buy.
Successful salespeople manage their prospect’s emotions. They implement a strategy to move prospects to the emotions they want them to feel. Prospects might feel many different emotions during their buying process.
Your job is to uncover a prospect’s emotions so he can act on them. Logic doesn’t motivate a customer to buy. Their emotions do. The emotions that come from pain are the ones you need to uncover because they motivate someone to do something. Pleasure motivates too, but less so.
You are going to make a sale when you get a prospect to feel those compelling emotions that he has to buy. You do that with your questions, not telling a customer all about the features of your product or service and why they are so wonderful. You ask about consequences of what happens as a result of your prospect’s problems. The answer is painful to the prospect and it motivates him to buy.
Too many salespeople start the sales call asking a lot of questions about the prospect’s business. Then the salesperson presents his product once the salesperson thinks he knows enough that the product is a fit for the prospect. That’s too soon! The prospect isn’t emotionally involved yet and the sale is likely to stall.
Go get your next sales call in shape. Do the perfect practice you need to sell more now.