Four Mistakes Sales People Make - # 1

I came across an interesting article on Inc.com that I think had the wrong title. No offense to the people at Inc, the article was called, "Sales Mistakes Young People Make" and in reading through the information, I thought - Whoa! everyone makes these mistakes!! I've seen veterans who have been selling for 50 years do this as well as a newbie straight out of the gate. I decided to "rename" the article & share it. We address these mistakes, (really just habits), in our training programs and I'll share information on that with you as well. Here is the first of a series of four on sales mistakes we ALL make!

Mistake #1: We offer too much Information.

In an effort to make an impression, we festoon our pitches with too many details. "We say, 'My product does 20 things, and I'm going to tell you all 20 and, hopefully, one of them you'll love,'" says Jeff Hoffman, co-founder of Basho Technologies and an adviser to a sales club at MIT, who teaches the fundamentals of sales to students interested in business and technology. No one has time for laundry lists. Be selective.

Let's face it, we are excited and passionate about our products and we want to talk about them. This mistake really speaks to two fundamental habits we need to change. The last two words in the article really tell us what to do - Be Selective.

What I mean by that is, sure, your product has a lot of fantastic features and benefits but what you need to know in order to be successful and get the sale is "Which one of those features and benefits does my customer care about the most??"

All we have to do is ask.....

Before we start talking, we have to start listening and ask our customer some questions! If we ask questions, we'll discover what their needs are and what is the most important "thing" (read that as feature) they will be most interested in.

Once we understand our customers needs, concerns, desires, etc - we can then offer them our product as a solution by leading with the the feature the customer cares about the most. At this point, it can all still go wrong. If we only talk about the feature, we are only telling half the story.

We need to connect our product's features to the benefit the customer will receive. Features are great but customers really care about the benefit.

If we first, ask questions and second, respond with the targeted features and benefits our customers are interested in, we will succeed.

Before you make your next sales call or sit down with your next client, think about what questions you should be asking and practice the specific and targeted features and benefits of your product and you'll eliminate these common sales mistakes. Tune in for the rest of the series, #2 - #4, coming soon.

Joe Sileo

President - TRAIN, LLC