Tool Box
Issue No. 23 - June/Nuly 2005
Five mistakes that can lose a sale
by Craig Stubing
Effective selling is about helping our prospective customers find solutions to their problems.
This requires a customer-focused attitude. It’s possible for a salesperson to project as being self-focused; that is, more interested in solving their own problems than in helping solve the prospective customer’s problems.
If a prospective customer senses that the salesperson they are talking to is self-focused they will turn off and go elsewhere. Here are some of the mistakes self-focused salespeople make that lose them sales.
Talking too much
Some salespeople believe that the more they talk the more likely it is that their prospective customer will buy (these are salespeople who admire “the gift of the gab”). They are wrong; the more the salesperson talks the more the conversation becomes a monologue and the more bored the prospective customer becomes. They will eventually ‘tune out’.
Effective sales conversations are balanced and foster a two-way communication. This is a situation where less can be more; customer-focused salespeople know this and they take care not to hog the conversation.
Customer-focused salespeople also take care to structure and practise their sales presentation/ demonstration to avoid verbosity while still retaining the zest they need to be effective. They constantly monitor the ‘talk ratio’ of their sales conversations to keep the conversations in balance.
Listening too little
Occasionally salespeople can be so intent on saying what they want to say that they fail to hear things that their prospective customer says.
A customer’s comments will often indicate priorities and points of concern or interest that represent the key to the sale. However, because the comments aren’t heard, the sales opportunity walks past. Customer-focused sales people listen to their prospective customers because they know that the key to the sale is in the cust...
