Salespeople

Make

Al Uszynski
www.SellingResource.com
 12 Mistakes Salespeople Make

Results Resources
Copyright © 2004 Al Uszynski
All rights reserved.

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The author and publisher are not responsible for misuse of this material. Your results in
implementing the ideas contained herein may vary. The author is specifically not giving legal
or accounting advice. Get proper legal and accounting advice from licensed professionals.

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 12 Mistakes Salespeople Make

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Al Uszynski helps companies and individuals sell more, earn
more and profit more. As a sales trainer and professional speaker,
he helps his clients achieve outstanding business results.
Al has made thousands of sales calls and has been involved in the
training of hundreds of business professionals. He understands
how to utilize communication skills and sales savvy to achieve
high performance. Those abilities have helped him build
successful careers in professional training and development, sales
management, sales engineering and telephone sales. Al
consistently exceeds expectations, over-achieves goals and ranks
among his organization's top performers.
He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and an
MBA in Management. For seven years, he earned high marks as
part of the sales course instructional team for a major
international training organization in New York City. Al
continues to teach sales skills as an adjunct faculty member at
Drexel University in Philadelphia, where he instructs Professional
Personal Selling and Professional Presentations courses.
In addition to his sales accomplishments, Al has received both
academic and professional awards for his first-rate speaking and
communication skills. His accomplishments in speaking and
training have earned him professional membership in the National
Speakers Association, the leading organization for experts who
speak professionally. In 2001, he was invited to present his white
paper, Ethics and Sales Education, at the International
Conference Promoting Business Ethics.
To find out how Al Uszynski’s live programs can help you and
your company sell more, earn more and profit more, visit
www.uszynski.com .
For online resources to help you sell more, earn more and profit
more, visit www.SellingResource.com .

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 12 Mistakes Salespeople Make

12 MISTAKES SALESPEOPLE MAKE

Professionals make mistakes all the time. Accountants

transpose numbers. Engineers miscalculate tolerances.
Teachers misinform students.

Salespeople, too, make mistakes all the time. And as long as we

are human we will continue to do so.

There are certain sales mistakes that are preventable though.

They are “behavioral mistakes” - a salesperson’s bad habits.
These everyday occurrences are often invisible to the
salesperson, but quite obvious turnoffs to the customer. Without
realizing it, salespeople frequently turn off customers and lose
sales opportunities.

The only way for salespeople to correct these missteps is to do

an honest self-assessment, determine that they have bad habits
and then take the appropriate actions to prevent them from
happening again.

Make sure that you aren’t behaving badly like the salespeople
who do the following:

1 Badmouthing the competition

There’s only one industry where badmouthing the
competition is an accepted practice - professional
wrestling. So unless you’re Hulk Hogan, you will
reek of amateurism the moment you start the
mudslinging. It’s okay to draw intelligent
comparisons and demonstrate why your product,
service and company is superior to the
competition’s – just be sure to do it professionally.

2 Pricing without confidence

If you sheepishly tell the customer what your price
is, or give a wordy, qualifying preamble before
quoting your price, customers will interpret your
actions as a lack of confidence on your part. They
will think that you don’t believe that your product is
worth the price you’re quoting. And please, for
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 12 Mistakes Salespeople Make

goodness sake, never use the term “asking price.”

By doing so you’re giving them “the price that stupid
customers pay” and are inviting price negotiations.

3 Talking too much

There’s a misnomer that talkative people make
great salespeople. In reality, nobody likes a
chatterbox. Focus on listening so that when you do
talk you’re honing in on the customer’s hot buttons.
You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in
that proportion.

4 Acting desperate
If you’re begging for appointments or orders, you’re
doing a bad job in getting the customer to
appreciate the value of your offering. Have some
dignity for crying out loud.

5 Guessing
If you don’t know the answer to challenging
customer questions, don’t make something up that
you think they want to hear. Instead admit that you
don’t know the answer but you’ll find out right away.
Customers will appreciate your candor and
professionalism.

6 Vanishing after the sale

If you provide great service throughout the selling
process and then disappear after the contract is
signed, you’ll leave the customer thinking, “did that
guy just run off with my money?” You’re not a 19th
century snake oil salesman who skips town with a
pocketful of cash. You’re a 21st century sales
professional. Service the heck out of customers –
even after the sale – and reap the rewards of
valuable referrals.

7 Premature Closing
Closing the sale should be like a traditional
marriage proposal. By the time you get to that point
in the relationship, the close is simply a rhetorical
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 12 Mistakes Salespeople Make

question because both parties realize the benefits

of getting together. Just like a guy wouldn’t give a
diamond engagement ring to a new acquaintance at
a singles bar, you shouldn’t go for the close until the
prospect thoroughly knows how wonderful your
offer is.

8 Overpromising
When you tell a customer that the product will ship
in five days or that you’ll be there at 9:30 or that
your system is 25 times faster, you better deliver.
Nothing destroys trust and generates skepticism
more quickly than a salesperson’s broken promises.

9 Treating prospects like numbers

There’s an old saying that sales is a numbers
game. Whether you subscribe to that notion or not,
it is never acceptable to treat a customer like a
number. Without customers, your company
wouldn’t exist. Instead of treating customers like
the umpteenth person you’re speaking with today,
treat them like the important human beings that they
are.

10 Knowing it all
You might be an expert on your product. You might
be a recognized authority in your industry. But
customers are the only ones who are experts on
their unique situation. Don’t jump to conclusions
and draw assumptions about your customers’
predicament. Let them tell you about it. Ask great
questions to draw it out of them. Then apply your
expertise to deliver the solution that best fits their
situation.

11 Stepping on the little people

Salespeople strive to meet with high-level decision
makers because they are the ones with the
authority to write checks. Although the big shot is
the one making the decision, your chances for
closing the sale increase if you build rapport with

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 12 Mistakes Salespeople Make

the underlings. Receptionists can block your calls.

Mid-level managers can make recommendations
that steer executives away from your offering. Earn
buy-in from underlings but negotiate only with the
senior exec. Remember, you can’t lose an election
by getting too many votes.

12 Acting like a prima donna

If you’re flashing your Rolex watch, answering your
cell phone in the middle of meetings and constantly
telling people how busy you are, then you’re turning
customers off. Be humble. Be modest. Be polite.
Focus on the on the other person, not yourself.
Besides, I am much busier than you are anyway.
(See how it feels?)

You might be thinking that all of these points are common sense.
You’re right. However, in my personal experience of making
over 4000 joint sales calls, I’ve observed countless “seasoned”
salespeople who make these career-stifling mistakes every
single day.

What bad selling habits can you break?

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