Look back over this last year, and think about the opportunities that didn’t go your way. Think about those prospects that you never got through to or that wouldn’t give you a meeting. Do you know what happened? Do you know actually why that outcome took place? Even getting feedback from the prospects rarely leads to an honest answer. In working with thousands of salespeople, I have found that there are only a few common reasons that most people have become turned off from either our initial message or from us during the sales process. In this chapter, I’m going to show you five reasons that customers don’t buy from you. Check it out.
Number one, we’re too enthusiastic. Nearly every single salesperson out there is behaving really enthusiastic and prospects see it coming from a mile away. It’s time to become more distinct from our competitors by toning it down and dropping that enthusiasm.
Number two, talking too much about your offering. Prospects don’t care about what you offer. They only care about solving their challenges and accomplishing their objectives. So stop focusing on our offering in that sales conversation, and instead, focus on understanding those challenges and helping your prospects accomplish their key objectives.
Number three, asking if you can learn about them. I see salespeople all the time asking prospects, something that sounds like this. George, could we set up a call so that way I can learn about your business, there is nothing that is going to turn your prospect off more quickly than feeling like we have to educate you on our business. Nobody wants to educate you, we need to first show value, and then engage that the prospect in that conversation about what’s going on in their world. Before we can ever learn about their business, we need to first show value and engage the prospect of a real conversation before we could ever learn about their business.
Number four, we didn’t learn enough about them. Now, this may sound a little contradictory given the last one that I just said. But it’s not. The last tip is about how we’re actually engaging them in the first place. Once they’re engaged, though. Now we need to fully understand exactly what is going on in that prospect’s world before we’re ever ready to offer that solution. So first, engage the prospect in a way that’s provocative and challenges them and now it’s time to fully understand those key challenges and those critical objectives. Number five, we’re too worried about price. I talked to a lot of sales people throughout the year. And whenever asked salespeople what is the biggest factor in your prospects decision-making process, they always, inevitably say that number one or two is price. Yet, my extensive research on this exact issue shows time and time again, that price is actually number six, or seven or even eight in terms of the importance in your prospects decision-making process. As salespeople were so focused on price and it’s time to stop focusing on price. Instead, focus on the value of the challenges that you’re going to be solving for your prospects. And then the price becomes really secondary.