Sales Tip #584 From The Sales Doctor
Top 10 Reasons Salespeople Fail
by Jacques Werth, Founder of High Probability Selling. © 2006
This study that was conducted over 16 years ago is still relevant today. Below you will see the first five reasons why salespeople fail. Next week, I will provide the remaining five.
We studied how the Top 1% Percent of Salespeople in 23 industries actually sells. They earn more than the average CEO, yet they seldom work as long, or as hard. Almost all of the Top 1% utilizes a consistent sales process with all their prospects and customers.
Most of them print out their sales process in a questionnaire format so that they do not have to memorize anything. That way, they can focus all of their attention on their prospects, rather than thinking about their next question or the next step in their sales process.
We have also studied how most of the other 99% of salespeople actually sell. Most of what they do is in direct opposition to how the Top 1% sells.
1. Most salespeople don’t prospect efficiently, effectively, and enjoyably. (See my previous article, “Top 10 Tips for Prospecting Success.”) Therefore, they spend most of their selling time with prospects who will not buy.
2. Most salespeople do not utilize a consistently effective sales process. Therefore, each sales opportunity is handled differently, based on what they are comfortable doing. Their results are hit or miss. The Top 1% consistently do what has the highest probability of producing high-closing rates.
3. Most salespeople believe that their primary function is to persuade and convince prospects to buy their products and services. Therefore, they utilize manipulative persuasion tactics, which most prospects resent. That creates sales resistance and results in low closing rates. The Top 1% know that persuasion and convincing are obsolete sales tactics. They utilize selling tactics that are compatible with the way the human mind works.
4. Most salespeople fail to get a conditional commitment to do business at the beginning of the sales process. Therefore, they waste too much time with prospects that have no commitment to buy.
5. Most salespeople neglect to determine the exact buying intentions of their prospects, including what their financial capacity is, when the purchase will occur, who makes the final decisions, etc. Therefore, they spend too much time and resources on low-probability prospects.
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