Have you ever felt annoyed, burdened, trapped, obligated or just flat out angry while someone was trying to sell you something? The answer is most likely a resounding yes. Bad sales practices come in all shapes and sizes, however, here are three of the most common mistakes that can send your potential customers running for the hills.
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Pushing Square Pegs Through Round Holes
Imagine a world where you needed one of everything. Sounds terrible, right? Well, some tuba salespeople don’t understand that not everyone needs a tuba. Get to know the people that walk through the doors of your store before throwing items at them left and right. Chances are, you just might find out what they need.
2. Pushing Product… Too hard
We’ve all been here. Typically they’re trying to sell you a new set of knives that don”t dull or a blender that can shred an Iphone. They read through a list of features in a whirlwind and act as if they’re selling a vaccine to cure mortality. They also keep trying to sell you as you’re walking away. It’s awkward, ineffective, and should be avoided at all costs.
3. Not Being Persistent
Now for a change of pace, we have lack of persistence. While being too pushy is obviously bad, failure to keep persistence can result in lack of sales effectiveness. Many new salespeople struggle with this aspect of selling as they fear to approach the same person twice. The truth is, there’s nothing wrong with asking whether or not a potential customer is interested or not, in fact, it’s better for the both of you.
Pushing a product too hard always gets me out the door fast. It is something that I just don’t enjoy one bit. Once I start to feel like the product is more important than me and my experience to the seller, I am instantly on edge.
These are all good examples of how the old model of sales in ineffective today. We can’t use these tactics to sell anymore. Selling is so much more advanced and complicated today.
Interesting way of explaining the first idea. It almost connects with the idea of answering unasked questions.
Any blender that can withstand an iPhone deserves my money. Have you purchased any tubas lately? They’re really quite handy. I don’t reach for my tuba often but…it’s like this: I’d rather have a tuba and not need it, than need a tuba and not have it. You know? If an emergency parade happened to be traipsing down the street you can grab your tuba and follow along in two shakes of a lambs tail.