Here is some wisdom I’ve learnt from various professional salespeople-some with 30 years or more experience.
Being a salesperson can be great fun. There have been some amazing changes in the profession over the years. However, now is a marvelous time to invest in a career in sales. Sales can be great fun, it is vital for businesses to grow, it can be very profitable and it is intellectually challenging.
The job of a salesperson has changed a lot in the last few years. Now, buyers are more savvy and salespeople have to work harder to stand out. Although it may be more difficult to sell in general, the best salespeople are still able to succeed.
The first thing you need to do is drop the 10 tactics below.
Examples of Sales Tactics that Don’t Work Anymore
1. Cold calling
If you believe that cold calling is an effective way to generate new leads, you’re wrong and should find a new profession.
Although cold calling may be difficult and not very efficient, it could still potentially be successful and positively impact your brand.
The more efficient way of prospecting in today’s market is to blog instead of making cold calls. Generally in one hundred hours of blogging, you can generate more leads than you could in one hundred hours of cold calling–and the statistics back this up.
Blog articles never expire, so you have a huge advantage over salespeople who make cold calls- your content is able to convert customers at a much higher rate.
What to Do Instead
In order to successfully make calls to prospective customers, it is best to first do your research in order to have a compelling reason for why you are calling. Additionally, you should work inbound leads that WANT to talk to you, and provide helpful insights to potential customers on social media platforms before even trying to engage with them.
2. Getting on a plane to start a relationship
In the 1990s, inside sales was not considered a career, but rather a stepping stone. Junior representatives would start in inside sales and as they moved up through the ranks, they would be given their own outside territory and would make face-to-face sales calls.
Most introductions were done over the phone, but early-stage sales calls were done in person. Meeting in person was not only expensive, but also a huge pain.
If you wanted to do business in the era before smartphones, you had to dress formally, print out directions to the office, travel to the prospect’s office, get there early, wait in the parking lot, make small talk with the receptionist, and then make more small talk with your prospect before you could get down to business.
The meeting dragged on for three hours, even though it was just supposed to last 45 minutes. It was just the first meeting to start a relationship and do a basic needs analysis.
What to Do Instead
In-person meetings are one of the most inefficient processes imaginable. In today’s world, actually meeting face-to-face is a nice-to-have, not a requirement. It is possible – even usual to do business with people for years without ever meeting them face to face! Inside sales is simply more efficient and scalable.
3. Overselling the product
In the past, sales cycles were much more complicated. All meetings were done in person, so the process was naturally slower and more difficult.
This resulted in salespeople having more freedom in what they said to their potential customers. They could say anything to get the process moving forward, knowing that in six months nobody would remember what was said.
The sales process took so long that a prospect’s priorities and product requirements would often be different by the end of the process than at the beginning. It took so long to implement and close a deal that glossing over critical parts of the solution was a normal part of the process.
What to Do Instead
Nowadays, it’s not possible to oversell a product and get away with it. If you’re working with a sales cycle that lasts 28 or 56 days, you’ll be talking to your potential customers often. You can’t lie, and you need to be careful with the details. If you’re not, you’ll be caught immediately. This is a good thing for buyers in general.
4. Treating your product demonstration as the end-all, be-all
Product demonstrations are no longer as important as they used to be for the final close. A prospect can learn about the product on their own much more easily than before.
Trials of software that is installed on a customer’s own computer rather than accessed through the internet were rare a few decades ago. Hardware and software were also much more differentiated a few decades ago, with new versions only coming out once a year. As a result, a boardroom demo (a presentation of a product to a group of potential customers) was a pretty big deal back then, and usually included a bit of theater to make it more impressive.
Nowadays, technology is more similar than it used to be. It’s uncommon to find a product in any industry that doesn’t have any competitors with a similar function.
What to Do Instead
Your competitor is likely to have the same product features as you within the next 24 months, and best-in-class features are integrated much more quickly and effectively.
The true indicators of success are culture, company, and your ability to solve problems. So never think your product demonstration is the only thing that matters — everything you do before and after is just as important.
5. Telling, not asking
This technique may have worked in the past, but it’s definitely not effective anymore. In the past, we would tell our prospects what they need and what they have to have. They had no choice but to listen to us because we had all the knowledge and power in the relationship. Nowadays, this technique does not work anymore.
You should be careful not to make assumptions and always try to get a clear understanding of the other person’s situation before you explain your own experiences.
What to Do Instead
In modern sales, it is more important than ever to ask probing questions to get a full understanding of your prospect’s situation before making any sort of recommendation. Taking the lead from the beginning is not as effective as it used to be.
6. Pushing hard for a borderline deal
Customers can feel it a mile away. Good salespeople keep in mind that it’s not about them. It’s about providing a solution for the customer. Of course, you have to make sales to be successful, but pushing too hard is a bad idea. Customers can sense it from a mile away.
But deals that are truly dead should be abandoned. If a deal isn’t looking promising despite your best efforts, or the person you’re trying to make the deal with keeps stalling, there’s probably a reason. Deals that are on the fence can usually be closed if you try hard enough. But deals that are truly hopeless should be abandoned.
What to Do Instead
If you are having trouble connecting with a prospect and they are ignoring your attempts to contact them, you could try being honest with them and hope they will respond honestly in return.
In this case, here’s what to do:
Asking if it is fair to assume that the prospect is not interested because they have pushed the meeting back multiple times.
If your prospect says they’re not interested, you can try to schedule another meeting, knowing that it’s important to them.
If they tell you that the initiative is on the back burner, you can ask when would be a good time to check back in and offer to not bother them until they are ready.
7. Moving too quickly
You have to balance your sales instincts and retention instincts, which means considering the short-term and long-term effects of your actions.
This is a difficult situation to be in — landing a one-call close is a huge rush and seems like a quick win. But if you’re just paying attention to the short term, you may wind up missing huge warning signs that your prospect won’t be a good customer.
Also, if you push deals through too quickly, you could damage your reputation and create a risk of losing customers. Don’t take a quick win today that will hurt you in the long run.
What to Do Instead
Don’t rush your prospects and make sure they understand their decision so they don’t leave your customer base in a short amount of time.
8. “It’s a numbers game.”
NO, IT’S NOT.
The best salespeople don’t just focus on quantity, they also make sure the quality of what they’re selling is high. This is important no matter what kind of market you’re in.
Focusing on a few key customers who will reap the most benefits from your product or service is much more profitable than trying many different strategies and hoping one of them is successful. There are many reasons for this.
Here are a few of the reasons :
- Quality makes you and your company/product more valuable to your customers – highly-effective, specialized solutions always command a higher price tag than generalist solutions. Focus on executing each deal to perfection and collect feedback on your product and strategy so you can provide more value to the customer.
- Quality helps you grow sustainably and predictably – it’s 5x-19x more expensive to find new business than keep the business you have already. Start small and stack the revenue from customers who are going to stick around for the long haul.
- Quality creates good vibes with the right people and drives referrals – which are 16% more lucrative than non referrals. When you treat each customer like they’re getting a custom solution, they will recognize that… and be much more likely to rave about you to their network.
What to Do Instead
It’s more important to focus on finding high-quality leads and customers than on trying to contact as many people as possible.
The next time someone tells you the best way to communicate is to “just pound out the emails and see who responds,” take their advice with a grain of salt.
9. “If you’re good at sales, you should be able to sell ice to an eskimo.”
This person is telling you that you need to be able to sell your product to anyone, but they are missing the point. You need to make sure that the customer actually needs your product. Selling ice to an eskimo wouldn’t be beneficial if they didn’t need it.
If they use ice to build an igloo, it’s likely that they also melt it for drinking water, in which case additives wouldn’t be good for them.
What to Do Instead
My point is that instead of making assumptions about what our customers want or need, we should ask them directly. This way, we can verify our assumptions with data and have a better understanding of what they want.
Keep in mind that you will have very little success trying to sell a vitamin to someone who needs a painkiller (and vice versa).
The classic case of not listening to the customer occurs with many startups. Almost half of startups fail because there is no demand for their product or service. This is often due to a lack of market research prior to starting the business.
Go talk to your customers to get feedback on your product. A single customer’s feedback is more valuable than you could ever get from trying to improve your product on your own.
10. “Customer don’t know what they need – we have to educate them!”
If you went to the doctor with a sore throat, and they just wrote you a prescription for morphine without examining you first, how would you feel?
How likely would you be to get a second opinion on that diagnosis?
Many salespeople get too focused on trying to sell their product, without first establishing trust with the customer. This makes it difficult to sell the product, even if it is a good solution, because the customer does not yet trust the salesperson.
And that’s even more important than the solution.
What to Do Instead
The most important rule of sales is that people don’t want to be sold to- they want to buy. This is because when a customer is buying, they feel like they’re in control. Therefore, your customers don’t need to be “educated” on why your product or service is the solution to their problems immediately.
The first step is to show them that you understand and care about their problem. Once they trust that you have their best interests at heart, they will be more receptive to your solution.
The most important thing is that someone who tells you to “educate the customer” is wrong unless the customer is ready and knows that you care about them.
You should keep your focus on your customers’ needs and interpret the advice you receive from them accordingly. The customer is not always right – however, you will always be better informed if you listen to what they have to say.
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