Sales professionals work too hard to generate B2B leads to have ineffective meetings with prospects. However, mistakes happen, and being aware of some of the most common mistakes could leads to higher levels of success. This list of sales call errors provided by Jeffrey Seeley, CEO of Carew International, in Inc. magazine can be a great learning tool for marketers who want to make the most of face time with potential customers.
Turning the meeting into a therapy session
Business professionals in almost every industry face challenges that can make their job a struggle. While it is the sales professionals’ job to talk about how their offerings can help a firm streamline its processes, allowing prospects to simply rant about issues that aren’t relevant to the meeting can quickly turn the sales call into a waste of time. Making sure that the conversation flows with topics that sales professionals can relate back to how their products and/or service could improve a firm’s processes can make the meeting with prospects worthwhile.
Becoming too friendly right away
Developing a rapport with sales prospects is a good way to add them to the firm’s client base, but it’s important that the conversation sticks to its intended purpose. According to the Harvard Business Review, sales professionals can make sure this happens by only using relevant anecdotes and examples to get their point across. Telling stories about how the company’s offerings can benefit a business is a proven sales strategy; however, it’s important to not let the discourse turn into a storytelling session, resulting in fewer chances to turn the prospect into a customer.
Asking too many questions
Learning about the company can help sales professionals understand how what they are trying to sell can be helpful to the business, but interrogating the potential client too aggressively can quickly turn the sales call into a disaster. A better strategy than asking a bunch of questions in a row can be fostering a conversation where both sides can give and take, providing both the prospect and the professional with an opportunity to learn about one another.
