Do you find yourself in a selling situation
where things seem to be on track,
and then for some reason, they just fall apart?
So often, sales people are doing things
that turn the prospect off,
but they never get feedback,
so they don't know what they're doing wrong.
In a lot of ways, it's like dating.
If you go on a date
and you do something the other person doesn't like,
they're not going to give you specific feedback
on how you can be better the next time,
they just disappear and ghost.
It's the same thing in sales.
So in this video, I'm going to show you 10 things
sales prospects hate about you,
or at least most sales people, check it out.
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Number One- Extended chit-chat.
I cannot tell you how many salespeople
are trying to do all of this long,
extended bonding and rapport junk
at the beginning of their sales conversations.
Your prospects are there for a reason.
They don't want on to have these long extended chit-chats.
Get to the point.
What they really care about is value
that you're going to bring to them,
not that you're the most charming human being on the planet.
Drop the chit-chat.
Number Two- Getting an immediate pitch.
There are so many salespeople out there
who are basically doing the equivalent
of opening up their jacket pocket and saying,
"Hey, look at all the amazing things that we have.
I want to show you how we're the best,
and we've been around for 375 years
and we are awesome." (chuckles) right?
The reality is is that your prospects
don't need that immediate pitch at the beginning.
What we need to do is determine
whether they're actually a fit.
Think like a doctor, not some cheesy car salesman.
Number Three- Yes! Yes! Yes!
Prospects don't want a yes man or a yes woman.
What they want is someone who is going to help them
determine if they're the right fit,
and is going to help them understand
the right solution for them.
And that means that yes, isn't always the right answer.
Prospects don't need to just become constantly told yes,
what they need is to be taken through a process
that helps them really identify what is the solution?
Number Four- The high enthusiasm.
Nobody needs the, "Hey, we're the best.
We're so excited to be here, I love my offering.
I love what I do, it's a glorious day."
That's an old school of stuff, right?
You know what many, many years ago, maybe it worked.
It probably didn't though.
The high enthusiasm thing is so common in sales now
that it's like, we're just talking to a robot
when we're talking to sales people.
We don't need that super high enthusiasm.
Just be a normal person
who wants to (chuckles) understand
the person in front of them.
Number Five- The long PowerPoint presentation,
there is nothing more boring to anyone on the planet
than the long PowerPoint presentation.
Think of how many movies, show, scenes,
where someone is supposed to be bored
because they're watching a PowerPoint presentation.
It sucks, no one wants it.
It's horrible.
I don't care if you were the most charismatic,
hilarious, charming human being.
Your long PowerPoint presentation sucks,
so stop doing it, nobody needs it.
Cut that stuff out, get to the pull point,
and really just focus your time
on understanding what they need
and then presenting only the solution
that's relevant to them.
Number Six- Never-ending probing questions.
Now, this may seem contrary to what I just said,
but the reality is that so often in modern selling,
we've been taught that we have to ask
so many different question to find out what's going on.
That's not true either.
We don't want to be asking these
never ending probing questions.
Do you want the product like this?
Or do you want the product like that?
What we want to do is just understand their problems.
We want to understand what are the challenges
that they're looking to overcome,
and then what is the solution that they're going to need?
That is not some never ending list of probing questions,
it is a systematic for awful,
and intentional series of questions
that's going to help you determine exact fit.
Number Seven- High-pressure close.
We have all dealt with salespeople that have tried to use
some cheesy, high-pressure close on us.
And when you get down to the bottom of it,
we all see it coming from a mile away.
We can feel it on the little hairs on the back of our neck.
We know when it happens
and all it's doing is actually hurting the sale.
So drop the high pressure close
and instead focus on creating real value
throughout your conversations.
So that way, by the end of the conversation,
there's no need for a high-pressure close,
it's just about next steps.
Number Eight- Month-end discounts.
This is really common in places like the software space
or particularly with bigger organizations that really have,
let's say they're publicly traded,
and so they've got month-end goals that they have to hit.
And so then at the end of the month,
it's all about getting discounts.
It's like, "Okay, what kind of discount
can we give to this person to close this deal?"
Month end discounts are actually according to the data,
correlative with lowering the close rates
over all of our sales.
Your prospects are going to feel kind of dirty
being offered a month-end discount, because it's like,
"Well, why couldn't I have gotten the discount before?"
Or "Why can't I get the discount later?"
Because they know that they're going to get the discount later.
So drop this month-end or quarter-end discount stuff,
or end of year discount.
Just be straight with your prospects.
Number Nine- Checking in.
There is nothing more annoying to prospects
than to have a salesperson who's just consistently
checking in to see how things are going,
to see if anything's changed.
When you call your prospects
or when you reach out to your prospects, have purpose.
Don't just check in, nobody wants that stuff.
That's value for you as the salesperson,
but as the prospect there's no value
that you're bringing to the table
when someone's just checking in.
So instead have real intentional purpose
every time you reach out to your prospects
or even clients for that matter.
Number 10- Email blasts.
Now, this is a personal one for me,
but there is nothing that annoys me more
about certain salespeople than when they just put me
on their email blast list for no reason.
You can send intentional, thoughtful personalized emails
to your prospects all day long, that's great.
But if you're just putting your prospects
on some big form blast list
where you're sending out discounts
or you're including lots of pictures on it,
and you're just putting it on this like marketing list,
if your prospects signed up for it, great,
But otherwise, send out intentional and personalized,
and thoughtful independent emails to each person.
That's real value but just email blasts,
that is not doing you or them any favors.
So there are 10 things sales prospects hate about you,
or at least most sales people.
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