Mistakes during sales conversation are common. But there are a few salespeople who end up making blunders by repeating the same again and again. Don’t be the one among them. It will cost your deals and thereby impacts your company’s revenue. Hence be attentive while conversing with your buyers. If they do not like you, they will move to the other vendor leaving you empty.
There are heaps of mistakes salespeople commit. But to help you with it, we have picked only top 10 out of them which most of the company’s experience. Study them carefully and try not to repeat it in your day-to-day sales activities.
1. Discussing Pricing Immediately
There is nothing wrong in discussing the price over a phone call. But, you must not do it as soon as you speak to your prospects. The researchers have found that if you talk about the price at the beginning of your sales conversation or anywhere before 15 minutes, the chances of blowing your deal are higher relatively. On the other hand, the top performers in the sales department speak about it somewhere between 38 to 46 minutes in their 1-hour call session.
Source: Gong.io
2. Speaking Only About Features and Technologies
It is one more thing the salespeople must take into consideration. The primary motive behind your conversation is to speak about your products and close the deals. But that does not mean you should talk only about it and annoy your potential customers. Instead of explaining how your product works, tell them how it helps them. Always a customer expects something from the product that is beneficial.
“Approach Each Customer With The Idea Of Helping Him Or Her To Solve A Problem Or Achieve A Goal, Not Of Selling A Product Or Service.” ~Brian Tracy
3. Asking Too Little or Too Many Questions
You need to know about your prospects such as their interests, their willingness to buy your product, and many more. You can do so by asking a certain number of questions that customers are happy to answer. But be careful. Do not overdo it and lose your sales. The researchers have found that you can ask the questions anywhere between 11 and 14 to increase the sales rate. The number of queries lesser than that or higher will not turn out to be good for your deals.
4. Talking Too Much On the Call
This mistake will hurt your lead generation process drastically. Although you are the one who called your prospects, you must always engage them in your conversation. It should not be one-sided communication since it will bore your customers to some extent. Listen more while speaking to them and learn their interests on the go. The more you engage them or listen to their issues; they will feel valued as well as helps you in building a relationship with the clients.
“Most people think ‘selling’ is the same as ‘talking.’ But the most effective salespeople know that listening is the most important part of their job.” ~Roy Bartell
5. Using the Words That Don’t Sell
How you speak to your prospects matters a lot in the sales conversation. There are certain sales killer words one must avoid while communicating with them. Try not to include them in your sales script ever. You cannot waste your time predicting which does not work well in your calls. To help you with this part, we listed some words that do not aid you in selling your product or services. Here are they-
- Roadmap
- Free trial
- Contract
- Competitor
- However
- Implement
- For example
- Payment
- Billion
- We provide
- Discount
- Absolutely
- Perfect
- Show you how
Note: Using a company name always in a phone call will also act as a killer word!
6. Not Giving Time to Think About Next Steps
You might have performed well in your call and convinced your prospects, but it will be of waste if you do not give them enough time to think about next steps. Hence if you want to make a significant number of sales, you must devote some of your call time to discuss the following steps. To move your sales phase forward, you have to include this tip in your conversation. So, do not skip this tactic at any cost since it is critical for your business success.
7. You Sound Scripted At Times
Do not sound robotic while conversing with your customers. Although you are using a sales script for communication, you should not make it evident in your calls. You might have a list of questions to ask your clients, but avoid asking all of them in a single shot. Try to engage your customers in between by spreading your questions evenly in your script. That is, insert them only in the required places. Try not to sound impersonal.
Take turns while communicating. Give them the chance to speak. By bouncing back and forth in the conversation, you can make sure that your customers are engaged in your script. Also, your customers will not think you are reading a checklist that does not give any importance to their problems. It is how you can gain their trust as well as make them feel valued at the same time.
8. Usage of Fillers Often
If you are making this mistake, you must stop it here itself. Most of the companies train their salespeople to avoid using filler words in their conversation. But, the truth is, people still use it! Although these words do not affect the sales rate, it annoys the customers if used often. Therefore, it’s always a best practice to avoid such words while communicating with your potential customers. We listed a few filler words that are most commonly used by sales representatives in their conversation. Make a note of these words and try not to use them in your calls often.
- Like
- So
- Right
- Actually
- You know
- Basically
- I mean
- Kind of
- Sort of
- Perfect
- Believe me
- Cool
- As you can see
- At the end of the day
- Hope you know what I mean
- Something
9. Telling About Company Too Much
Talking about your company is essential but doing it too much will impact your brand’s reputation negatively. Customers do not like to hear about your organization’s history or awards. The more you speak about it, the chances of losing the deal increases. Hence make sure you do not spend much of your call time on such unnecessary topics. So, what is the ideal time to let your customers know about your brand? The survey from gong.io states an average of 2 minutes will be sufficient for this task.
10. You are The Only One to Sell
If you are the only one to sell to a particular customer, it will not have a more significant impact on their mind. To make your company sound authoritative in your segment, you must involve other people from your team as well. That is, you can either include a sales manager, project manager or other higher leads in your department to speak about your product and its benefits. This step increases the chance of closing the deal compared to executing it solo.
Bonus Tip
Try to use collaborative words in your conversation as much as possible. An analysis by Chorus revealed that the top performing sales representatives use many such words and phrases compared to the low performers. Here is a list of words you must take note of:
- We
- Us
- Our
- Together
To Sum It Up
Now it’s over to you to decide how you will deal with these mistakes. If not you, any of your team members might be repeating these mistakes in their sales conversation. Stop them from doing it immediately. It will harm your deals and affects your lead generation process immensely. Hence you must consider these mistakes and deal with them carefully. The tips mentioned in this article will be of great help if you utilize them appropriately. Give it a thought before drafting any sales script or dialling a number from now onwards.
“If You Are Not Taking Care Of Your Customer, Your Competitor Will.” ~ Bob Hooey