I love Sales and I love most people who sell for a living. But I get tired of seeing salespeople shoot themselves in the foot on a regular basis. Out of frustration, the other day I launched into a rant on twitter with a batch of consecutive tweets proclaiming what I wish salespeople would STOP doing in order to be more successful. Here are two dozen things I keep seeing that drive me crazy (and hurt sales performance):
I wish salespeople would STOP…
- Starting the day by spending two hours responding to emails
- Calling prospects to “check-in” or “touch base”
- Leading with offerings or using lame openings like the pathetic “we’re a supplier” or “we offer…“
- Showing pictures of their facilities early on during sales calls and presentations (or any time for that matter!)
- Allowing the buyer to dictate the flow of the sales call
- Initiating the price conversation and committing Sales malpractice saying stupid things like “let me quote that for you and see if we can do better”
- Pretending they’re part of the Operations department
- Volunteering for committees, other corporate assignments and projects so they can avoid prospecting for new business
- Waiting around for a warm inbound lead or perfectly qualified prospect
- Faking like they’re making outbound phone calls
- Immersing themselves in customer service issues and putting out fires
- Spending an inordinate amount of time tweaking marketing materials
- Telling prospects about how long their privately held company has been around
- Changing direction on a whim instead focusing on a strategic, finite list of target prospects
- Listening to false teachers who preach that proactive prospecting is dead and not productive for developing new business
- Talking so much on sales calls and talking over the potential customer who is trying to provide clues as to how to sell them
- Presenting before doing appropriate discovery work
- Telling prospects how much they know and how wonderful their solution is
- Hiding from potential objections and pretending that everything is going to work out
- Saying that they “love the hunt” even though they’re very uncomfortable with the associated risk, conflict and rejection that is part of prospecting and new business development
- Spending more time on Facebook or sports websites than reading sales blogs or investing in their own development
- Playing the victim; blaming the economy
- Obsessing over the very few hot opportunities in their pipeline as opposed to spreading effort and energy across deals in various stages of the sales cycle
- Trying to fool everyone by overcomplicating the sales process in an attempt to hide their lame effort or poor results
Do you agree with these? Are you seeing the same things? What’s on your list? Which bad habits do you see hindering sales performance?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Mike,
A big one for me is when I see sales people playing “errand boy” to existing clients. I work in the hotel industry and it blows me away at the amount of emails and voicemail messages sales people get from clients asking them to do minor post sale activities. When challenged, most hotel sales people respond by saying that because they made the sale, the client expects them to be their go to person as well. I’m not suggesting that the sales person should just vanish after the sale, but if in the presentation you show the client how the company can solve it’s problems, then why is it necessary for the sales person to overly involved in the execution of the services?
Strong words James. I couldn’t agree more. It’s not that the salesperson should vanish after the sale. They shouldn’t. But reality is that so many salespeople who fail to achieve their new biz dev goals, do so because they either obsess with babysitting existing clients or get overly involved in Operations. I wrote about this back in January in a post titled Underperforming Salespeople Should Stay Out of Operations. It’s when this “over-serving” customers becomes an excuse not to prospect that I get concerned.
Thanks for your thoughts on this!
Mike
Mike,
This was painful to read. Painful because it’s true. I think the only thing missing is a summary 80/20 comment. I think most sales managers would say 80% of this list is perpetrated by 20% of their sales force.
Frank Z.
Before taking a career sharp left turn, I did a lot of sales calls and a lot of sales training. And it is interesting that a lot of what is taught has to be untaught as salse people start to call on more senior clients or start to make much bigger sales. In other words, those things that work (or are tolerated) by small value buyers, become hige blocking factors with big value buyers.
Trying to do Item 5 with a CEO of a top 1000 company is going to hack him off. Its his office, his time, and his agenda. Controlling the sale is very old school teaching and goes with all the macho stuff from “The Art of War” and military analogies about attacking the target client base.
If you get your prospecting right then a lot of the classic ‘sales diciplines’ are inappropriate. In fact they are demonstrably counter productive.
Chris, good to have you here and thanks for sharing. I appreciate your perspective and can relate to what you are saying, but would respectfully disagree. The higher the contact in our prospect’s organization, the more important it is that we come off as prepared professionals who come to meetings with a plan and an agenda. Way too many salespeople take a passive, reactive approach; one story I tell in my book describes a situation where a sales rep told me he likes his calls to be “organic.” I am all for a natural flow. But since we asked for the meeting, we should arrive with a plan — prepared to lead the call. This doesn’t mean we “control” it as you say. It means we clearly share our agenda and plan for the call with the person we are meeting — and we ask for their input. I’ve written extensively about the importance of “Sharing Our Agenda and Setting Up the Call” — in fact, it’s one of my most popular posts and I offer specific language a salesperson can use to share their plan and agenda and seek the prospect’s input.
In #5 above when I refer to wishing salespeople would stop allowing the buyer to dictate the flow of the call, I am not declaring we must “control the sale.” But I am strongly arguing that it’s our meeting and we should lead it. And lots of experience shows me that bad things happen when the salesperson goes along for the ride instead of intentionally conducting the sales call.
Don’t over read into what I am saying. We must adapt to the buyer’s style. The sales call is about the buyer, his/her issues, business, needs, opportunities, etc. And I love to mix it up to get a senior executive to talk. I’ll even ask a C-Suite executive, “Why am I here today?” or “Why did you invite me in?” But that doesn’t mean I am allowing them to dictate the flow of the call.
Number 22 gets me the most. I have no patience for sales people who redirect blame to uncontrollable circumstances because they chose to NOT put in the effort.