common mistakes

Common Mistakes in Selling

When selling, some people make mistakes that lead to them loosing out on a sale so it is crucial that you are made aware of these common mistakes so that you do not adopt them:

Do not beg

Some sales people make the mistake of begging a potential customer to let them present their product or service in the hope of making a sale. This is a huge mistake. To be a great salesperson you must firstly ask questions of the potential customer to establish whether or not they are suitable to do business with. By asking simple questions you can quickly determine whether the potential customer will be interested in your product or not. Thus, will save you time and above all the embarrassment of begging.

Do not make any assumptions

Occasionally, salespeople make the mistake of telling the customer the solution to without even understanding their problem. By doing this neither helps the customer or the salesperson because the salesperson will provide a product that the customer does need or want and in turn the customer will not go to that salesperson again. Therefore, as a salesperson you must ensure that ask the customer as many questions a s possibly so that you understand their problems.

Do not talk too much

Sometimes sales people end up dominating their time with a potential customer my talking too much. this is mainly due to the fact that they become too focused on their presentation and the potential customer is forced into listening for the majority of the time. This can be extremely damaging because the more you talk the less time is spent in actually making the sale. Thus, a good idea would be to follow the 80/20 rule, which means the potential customer does 80%of the talking whereas, you only do 20%.

Chatting too much

Salespeople sometimes spend too much time chatting and never end up making a sale. Normally, the client recognizes that there is too much chatting before the salesperson and the salesperson is left wondering how well they actually did with the client.

Failing to get the client's commitment

More often than not salespeople fail to get the client's commitment to purchase before their presentation. So the salesperson ends up showing how smart they are at making great presentations and state all the benefits and features and end up forgetting their main goal which is to make a sale. Thus, the client leaves the salesperson with all the information about the product to take to another competitor.

Answering unasked questions

Occasionally clients say things to salespeople such as, your price is too high. The salesperson then makes the mistake of offering the client a prices reduction. By giving a client this price reduction just because they made a statement then they will try something more powerful to get an even cheaper price. Salespeople need to remember that the customer never asked a question, they just made a statement you do not need to answer them and provide them a discount.

Disorganized

It is a crucial mistake when sales people are not organized for meeting and presenting to potential customers. The effects are that the client ends up controlling the selling process and end up leaving the presentation confused as to whether they will get the sale or not. Therefore, it is crucial that as sales professional you go through specific steps in the selling process and control the interaction between the potential customer and yourself.

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