Are you making these common mistakes in your sales conversations? If so, you're not alone. But if you can eliminate these common mistakes, you'll stand out and buyers will enjoy meeting with you.
Sales conversations aren’t always smooth. That's why buyers avoid them. It's up to sellers to make these conversations more engaging and less awkward.
The 5 most common reasons sales conversations do not flow naturally are:
- The seller is hyper-focused on a list of questions or on a pre-set agenda. The emphasis seems to be on making it through the list without regard for the underlying purpose of any one question or item on the list.
- The seller is afraid of objections, new information, questions she might not be able to answer, unfamiliar topics and/or of losing the buyer’s interest. She tries to constrain the scope of the conversation so it doesn’t get uncomfortable for her.
- The seller is painstakingly conscious of the time. He starts by apologizing for taking the buyer’s time. He prefaces questions with minimizing statements like “I know you’re busy, but if I could bother you for just one more minute…” He checks his watch frequently.
- The seller is unable to resist the urge to sell. Something! Anything! Right Now!
- The seller is speaking in a language the buyer doesn’t understand or doesn’t want to understand, using industry jargon or talking about product specifications that are too technical, irrelevant or low value for the buyer.
What’s unfortunate about these awkward sales conversations is they happen with such regularity that buyers have come to expect little more when they meet with sellers.
This is one reason buyers are reluctant to set appointments with sellers and buyers choose automated ordering systems rather than working directly with sellers. No one wants to engage in an awkward, unnatural sales conversations. Sellers who take a more natural approach and have regular conversations – interchanges of ideas with two-way communication – clearly have a better shot at connecting with buyers.
