Sales sins are basic, fundamental things that can instantly kill a sale. Everything is going well and when a sin is committed, everything stops dead in its tracks. The worst part is, it’s preventable.
Yesterday, I was having a conversation with a client who had a qualified, experienced salesperson who committed one of the most common sales sins – believing a prospect’s lie. The salesperson was making appointment setting calls to have a consultant meet with them to present their products and services. The list was my client’s database, the same database he has been using for the past several years to maintain and grow his sales.
The sales approach, which we teach in our Killer Konversations and Killer Kampaigns workshop is to have a multi-touch approach.
In this instance, the first few touches were emails. Their CRM system not only tracks emails opened, but also tracks the specific web pages the prospect visited on their website. Salespeople refer to this as a warm prospect.
The salesperson called and the prospect claimed that her email on file had not been used in more than 7 years.
The salesperson believed the lie, and the sale was lost.*
The primary issue with sales is the need to remain “on message”. Distractions like this white lie or an outright full-blown lie is totally irrelevant to the sale. A competent, experienced salesperson knows this and just ignores it, accepting that it’s part of his/her job to get back “on message” and make the sale.
* Upon further analysis, the CRM system revealed the prospect in question had opened the email several times.
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