5 Most Common Inside Sales Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Posted by Geoff Alexander on Tue, Sep 09, 2008 @ 01:19 AM
During the process of designing our customized telesales skills courses, I always interview all of the reps that will be in the class. I ask how they conduct the sales process, what's working for them, and what isn't. There are five behaviors that I see constantly, and each will increase the time it takes to make the sale or prevent the sale from occurring. They all inhibit sales performance. Let's discuss them, and how to fix them. Ho many of these sound familiar?
1) Failing to select the right individual with whom to begin the sales process. Many reps begin by calling a lower-level person at the prospect company, rather than starting by calling high. Here's probably the most common example from the IT world: You get an inbound lead from a Network Administrator interested in your network security solution. Instead of beginning your sales process there, you should instead start at the CIO's office to determine if there is an initiative in place to adopt your type of solution.
2) Not using appropriate language in opening the call. If you're starting with a cold call to an exec (see #1 above), don't begin by asking "How are you today?,"or asking if this is a good (or bad) time to talk. Those openings inhibit rapport immediately, and you're not selling consultatively as a peer. Instead, begin by introducing yourself and your company in one sentence, then tell the exec exactly why you're calling (our sales courses can help you with scripting).
3) Not talking enough about the prospect's business. Many reps spend far too much time discussing their own companies, and far too little time talking about the prospect's business. Let's say you're selling software development tools, and your prospect is in the drive train division of a large auto maker. Why not ask to what other divisions their code goes when finished? Do those divisions use devtools too? Ask who would be a good contacts within those divisions. If you don't know what a drive train is to begin with, try Google or Wikipedia. With intricate high tech products, you'll often hear obtuse answers to the question "What are you building?" I always like to ask how their end-users use their product or service, which tends to drive the conversation to layperson's terms, easier to understand than the tech terms prospects sometimes use. Being intelligently ignorant at the beginning of a call is OK, because by asking intelligent questions about the prospect's business, you will soon understand the business reasons a prospect is considering your solution.
4) Not asking enough questions regarding the business problem the prospect is facing for which your product could be a solution. If the prospect is interested, why not ask more about the consequences to his or her company if a solution is not found. The answer will provide important return-on-investment data for you as the sales process progresses. A great way to kick off the discussion is to ask the prospect how his or her product or service makes money for his or her company.
5) Not remembering that people generally only buy for two reasons: Either your solution will help the prospect company to make money, or to stop from losing money. The price for your solution has to look good on the balance sheet. Often, you have to help the prospect to understand the return-on-investment your solution brings to the table, and you can't do it unless you can predict how the conversation will go in the CFO's office when you're not there. Always ask the prospect how he or she thinks your solution will make financial sense for the company. If you can't get these answers from your prospect, you may be calling too low on the decision tree (see #1 above).
If you avoid the mistakes listed here, I guarantee that you'll increase sales. Pass these tips along to your colleagues, and add them to your Best Practices playbook.