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October 29, 2015 at 12:00 AM
1. Waiting for someone else to create your opportunities for you.
A lack of prospecting usually proves fatal when it comes to selling well. Your success hinges on your ability to create new opportunities.
2. Not preparing for sales meetings.
The most valuable activity in which you can engage is spending time face-to-face with your prospects and clients. Not using that time wisely is a mistake.
3. Not listening.
In inability — or unwillingness — to listen well proves that you are self-oriented or lack discipline. No one wants to buy from someone who doesn’t care about what they say enough to listen.
4. Leading with your product.
Unless you are Apple, you’re not Apple. Trying to open an opportunity by leading with your product mostly causes resistance. It also makes it appear that what you sell is a commodity.
5. Competing on price.
Unless that is your company’s chosen strategy, competing on price is one of the worst of worst practices. It normally doesn’t work. And it prevents you from delivering.
6. Lying or not setting the right expectations.
There aren’t too many things worse than lying in an attempt to win business. Lies of omission aren’t any less harmful, which is why you have to set the right expectations, even when you feel that it will threaten your deal.
7. Failing to follow up.
Failing to keep your commitments might indicate that you don’t care, that you aren’t detail-oriented and buttoned-down, or that you can’t be trusted. Even the small commitments matter.
8. Avoiding accountability.
