Salespeople make selling harder than it should be. I’ve worked with hundreds of salespeople about their selling skills, and it really is that easy to sum up. Sales should be natural and fun, but for some crazy reason, sales professionals continue to go about it the hard way.
Think of something in your life that you are really good at. Is it hard for you? Does it zap the energy out of you? Probably not. However, if selling is something you perceive to be hard or it zaps the energy out of you, then you just might be selling the hard way.
Here are three things that sales professionals do to make selling harder than it should be.
- They flat out over-complicate things.
Classic example: “Prospect A is no longer returning my calls. When I get him/her back on the phone, I don’t know what to say to them. I don’t know if something has changed and they are no longer interested, or if they were just legitimately busy.” Sound familiar? Here is a highly productive selling technique: Why don’t you just be authentic and ask your prospect that specific question?
- They talk too much.
Any decent sales professional out there knows they should be doing less talking. However, many still talk too much, and sadly they don’t have the self-awareness to realize this. The more a sales rep talks, they create more questions than they answer for the prospective client.
- They’re afraid of tough questions.
Selling is really easy if you seek the truth and are not attached to an outcome. If you don’t ask the tough questions, you will find yourself chasing more, trying to “guess” what to do next, and hoping an opportunity closes in the future.
Selling doesn’t have to be as hard as many people make it. Follow your process, use your selling skills, achieve your milestones, be authentic, talk less, and ask the tough questions. Do these things, and you will find the pressure is removed for everyone involved in the process.
