The Entrepreneurs Library
7 Reasons Why Your Sales Skills Suck
7 Reasons Why Your Sales Skills Suck
Every business needs to sell. And to do it, every entrepreneur needs to possess specific sales skills. You may be quite good at every other aspect of managing a business, but if you suck at sales, you won’t be as successful as you wish for.
How do you know whether your sales skills are good enough? To do it, you have to identify the signs that spell otherwise. With this knowledge, you can get rid of the negative sales behavior and focus on the positive points.
Let’s take a look at the 7 reason why your sales skills suck:
Failure to identify prospects: Are you still stuck with cold calling your prospects? The sales world has come a long way since then, and if you cannot keep up with the changes, you are in for failure.
Newer avenues of prospecting have come up; requesting for referrals, speaking at events, writing a blog, participating in an association, collaborating with a complementary business, and many others make it much easier to land new prospects.
No track of sales activities: Another sure sign of deficiency of sales skill is when you don’t keep track of whatever’s happening in this area. And just periodic updates of your sales activities aren’t adequate.
Continuous tracking of sales activities keeps you on top of the numbers and figures. It ensures that you are capable of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the sales team. Also, it helps you spot any problematic areas in the sales cycles.
Improper communication: Asking the right questions is important; asking something such as ‘what’s your budget?’ won’t really engage a potential customer. A suitable alternative will be to focus on how much the challenges are costing the prospect.
Communication is a two-way thing – if you just talk, and never listen, it will be of no use. Only when you pay attention to what a prospect says, will you be able to tailor your approach to match their needs and demands.
Too much focus on quantity: Do you focus more on the number of prospects you contact or on whether you can get most of them to close the sale? If you have the former approach, it won’t be the best thing to do.
Consider this – will you like it better if you can call up 100 prospects in a day even if most won’t even listen to you? Or will it be better if you can focus on 25 prospects and tailor your approach so that most of them lead to sales? The answer’s pretty obvious.
Zero presentation skills: Preparation is the key to good sales presentations. If you spend less than 10-20 minutes on each prospect, you won’t have appropriate and adequate idea about the approach to take.
Instead of preparing a general presentation for every prospect, focus on customizing your approach to fit the prospect in front of you. Take your time to understand the challenges of the prospect and focus on how your solution helps them overcome it.
Emphasis on wrong prospects: Sometimes, a prospect remains a prospect – forever. Even if it’s a really lucrative prospect, it won’t do your business any good for the simple reason that it will never end up as a sale.
How do you identify a wrong prospect? If the delays become incessant, and the closure doesn’t come even after a considerable time (this depends on your business type), it is perhaps best to move on to the next potential customer.
Improper handling of objections: It’s not always smooth sailing when it comes to sales. But you have to learn how to handle the hurdles in a smooth manner too. Prospects will have objections; and you need to learn how to handle them.
Before you offer a solution, ask for permission to do it. If you aren’t sure, clarify it beforehand. And always be understanding and respectful. You aren’t supposed to be impartial, but don’t be too biased either.
Slowly Getting rid of these 7 reasons why your sales skills suck overtime will help you strengthen your ability to close.
Are you looking for some awesome books on fresh sales tips, tactics, and takeaways?
I recommend you to take a listen to my episodes on the following books:
1) Pitching and Closing by Alex Taub
2) The Entrepreneur Mind by Kevin D Johnson
Cody Faldyn
Cody is a blogger, social media specialist, graphic designer, and the Marketing Evangelist behind The Entrepreneurs Library. With a long time passion for personal growth, Cody helped create a website and podcast with the intent to educate aspiring entrepreneurs on the latest and greatest books on business growth and personal development.
