As salesmen, our duty is to get the product in the hands of customers and earn some cool cash for the organization. Sometimes, though, a few selling errors make that a lot more difficult than it already is. Let me share with you what I consider seven of the most important selling errors. This is by no means an exhaustive list; you may please add your own:
1. CLAIMING POSITIONAL LEADERSHIP: If I walked up to you and said, for instance, that I am Africa’s number 1 sales coach, I’d expect you to at least ask who conducted the exams for Africa sales coaches. And to be frank, my position in the industry might not necessarily solve your problem. What a customer wants and desperately needs is a solution. That may not have much to do with the fact that you are number one or number two.
Secondly, claiming a position is a sure argument starter, and when you set off an argument, you get the prospect in the defense mode, and they’re less likely to buy. In my early days selling banking services, I made this error quite frequently, and in almost all instances, we just had a good debate without me making sales. Far from what I wanted!
2. SELLING THE OFFER: As salespeople, what we sell is a solution, not product features. But in a desperate attempt to prove that our solution is better than the alternative(s), which might be preferred by the customer, we tend to shift all focus to product features, meanwhile stating the features would not convince the customer. In a bid to keep your focus on selling the solution, focus substantial attention on the problem. After you have demonstrated an accurate understanding of the problem, that’s when you go on and state how this product solves that problem. If you look very well at the guys who sell pharmaceutical products in the market in Lagos in those days, this is often their approach. Some of them even demonstrate the health challenges. Little wonder why even the literate folks are often drawn by their strategy, and almost everyone in the bus ends up buying.
3. REFERRING CUSTOMER TO YOUR BOSS: I made this error in my early days in sales. And very easily, the customer would not close any deals until he had spoken to my boss. What I actually wanted was just to have the customer talk to another senior officer so he could have additional comfort, but it often backfired. Do not get me wrong, you might need your superior to close a few big-ticket sales. But until it gets to such critical moments of concession, it might be a bad strategy to quickly run to your boss. It often backfires. Very soon, the customer will stop buying from you, always insisting on speaking to your boss. For a salesman, that’s not a good reputation. You must take particular ownership of your own customers.
4. SELLING THROUGH A GO-BETWEEN: There is nothing more frustrating than selling through a go-between. My personal experience tells me that 95% of the time, the salesman would not close the deal. This is why B2B sales guys must ascertain at first contact whether they’re talking to the right guy. Now, you might be talking to the CEO and still not be talking to the right guy. The right guy is not necessarily the most powerful. In structured organizations, the recommendations of direct-responsibility managers carry a lot of weight. Be sure you’re talking to the manager who has direct responsibility for the purchase of that product. That’s not to say you cannot get leads from some other persons; of course, you can. But you should sell to the right person, not necessarily your introducer.
5. NOT UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM: This can be very tricky, especially for a startup. In the NYT best-selling book “The Lean Startup,” Eric Ries illustrated this with his experimentation while creating a startup company called IMVU, an instant messaging (IM) application. They were going to create an IM add-on, and it seemed pretty obvious to Ries and his team that what customers wanted was specifically the IM add-on, with the belief that having to learn a new programming language for a standalone IM product was a huge barrier customers were unwilling to cross. That proved fatally wrong! Customers were, in fact, using multiple IM programming languages, and that wasn’t a barrier. What they wanted was actually a stand-alone IM application. If you do not understand the REAL customer’s problem at the most elemental level, you can’t sell. This is made a lot more complicated by the fact that sometimes the only thing the customer can recognize is the solution (and that is when it is made). In many instances, the customer cannot even articulate the problem quite precisely. So, the salesman is not just describing solutions; he will also be required to describe the problem.
6. THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TELLING AND SELLING: The most important part of your sales activity is listening. You can NEVER win in sales just by reading out your own prepared scripts. What’s best is often to let the customer read out their own prepared script and sometimes oft-stated objections, then you can ask vital questions that pick holes in those objections. In selling, if you must keep one rule, that rule is “Listen more than you talk.” Tellers are always talking; sellers listen a lot more.
7. ALWAYS THINKING CHEAPER: This is where management often quarrels with the sales team. Sometimes it is necessary to make downward price reviews, but the salesman must understand that a cut in prices does not always solve demand problems. Price has to necessarily reflect costs, and beyond that, if you are always selling to the wrong people, your product will always be very costly. And so you understand, when someone says, “Your products are too expensive,” what they’re basically saying is, “I cannot see as much value in this solution as you are charging for it.” Again, the wrong customer will never see substantial value in a product. Imagine selling ausatian dog food to a village dog keeper. You can never persuade him to pay the value.
8. In your own opinion, which other common errors do salesmen make?