During the sales call, do you explain the key features and unique aspects of your product or service in an attempt to educate your prospect and establish your credibility, only to find yourself handling an objection for nearly every point you make?  Do you “overcome” each objection only to have another one leveled at you?

Do you expertly present your industry and product knowledge to capture prospects’ interest and create enthusiasm for your product but still have to deal with delays and put-offs?

Do your prospects see your “closes” coming and skillfully evade them?

At the end of your sales calls, do your prospects know more about you and your product or service than you know about them?  Are you unaware of how they perceive salespeople, their preferences for doing business, why they would choose one vendor or supplier over another, what they’ve tried in the past, what has worked and what hasn’t?

When you’re back at the office, do you find yourself trying to figure out some critical elements about a prospect’s real needs, financial resources, decision process, or level of commitment to purchase your product or service?

Are you unsure why some prospects buy from you and why others don’t?

Deep down, are you disappointed with the result of all your hard work?

If you answered “yes” to some, or perhaps all, of the above questions, then you are most likely sabotaging your own efforts.

How can that be?  You most likely talk too much during your sales calls – especially during the early stages.  While it’s important for your prospects to know about your product or service, your company, and you, it’s equally important, if not more so, for you to know about them – why they want or need your product or service, why they would buy it from you as opposed to one of your competitors, what resources they have available to purchase your product, how they would go about making a decision to do so, and their expectations for doing business.

Don’t be so quick to educate your prospects.  Learn to ask questions and gather information first.  There will be plenty of time later to educate them if they qualify for an eventual presentation.

Stop handling stalls and objections.  Identify the issues around which the typical stalls and objections revolve and bring them up early in the call.  If one or more of them will become a real road block to completing a sale, it’s better to deal with it sooner rather than later.

Don’t fall into the technique trap.  Trial closes – impending event, conditions of satisfaction, Ben Franklin, etc. – don’t close sales; they precipitate objections and stalls.  The prospect has seen and heard all of them before and is well prepared to resist them.  Closing a sale is the result of mutual agreement between the prospect and salesperson to continue the process from the initial contact to an ultimate presentation.  The process may stop at any point if it is no longer mutually beneficial for the parties.  If they both agree to continue, a buying decision will be made.

If you want to stop sabotaging your efforts, you must first accept that you will have to make some changes.  Don’t let your fears (“Oh, I could never ask a prospect that”) or your existing beliefs (“Prospects aren’t going to reveal that information even if I ask”) handicap and prevent you from breaking through your barriers to a greater level of success.

Also, you must be willing to exercise your rights.  Yes, salespeople have rights, too!  You have the right to the truth, even though sometimes it’s not what you want to hear.  You have the right to ask questions to determine where you are in the selling process and what’s going to happen next.  You have the right to determine early in the process if there is a real business opportunity for you.  You have the right to determine where and with whom to invest your time.

Be willing to step outside your comfort zone.  Change isn’t always easy.  But, the short-term discomfort will be worth the trade-off of greater long-term success.

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