The Top 3 Mistakes Sales and Consulting Professionals Make

I noticed that the same sales mistakes keep coming up over-and-over again during group communication trainings. The scary part? Both junior and senior roles are making these mistakes!

This past summer, I've trained numerous teams within enterprise level companies (Workday, SAP), nonprofit organizations, and local small businesses here in SF. And these are the most common mistakes I've seen that prevent them from understanding their prospect's pain points and building trust with their clients. 

Mistake #1 - Asking the wrong questions. On pre-sales calls, I see SDRs and AEs mindlessly recite their list of questions without paying attention to the verbal and nonverbal cues their prospects give them. And on post-sales motions, I see CSMs and TAMs fail to follow through with their questioning, resulting in insufficient solutions for half-understood problems. It's not enough to just ask questions... it's equally important to ask your prospect/client to prioritize, analyze, and evaluate the information they've revealed to you. You need more than question scripts to get the information you need!

Mistake #2 - Listening to Respond. Both pre and post-sales members have problems here. Part of why they ask the wrong questions is because they aren't truly listening... they're waiting to respond. This is one of the hardest habits for sales/consulting professionals to undo. The best thing you can do after hearing them respond to you is to confirm you've received their message the way it was intended, NOT to immediately jump into another question or comment. The goal here is to make your prospect/client interactions OUTWARD focused. Seeking to be interested instead of trying to be interesting is ironically the best way to get others to trust what you have to say.

Mistake #3 - They lack clarity. This comes up the most with post-sales teams. It isn't just the cliche, "listen more than you speak" - it's a complete lack of structure that causes them to ramble their way out of otherwise closed deals. Speaking concisely and being able to bottom-line your communication is an imperative way to gain support for your ideas and increase their ability to trust what you have to say. It doesn't matter how much you know if you don't know how to structure your thoughts in a way that is meaningful and impactful for your clients.

Are you tired of losing qualified leads to your competitors?
Are you experiencing churn from clients who weren't able to fully leverage your product/service?

If so, I have proven frameworks to solve all of these issues. Click below to learn how I can help your team turn communication into your greatest competitive advantage:

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