Pssst… You can listen to this above or read below 5 Reasons Why You’ll Lose a Sale You’re about to be armed with one of the biggest game changing pieces of sales knowledge I could probably teach you. I’d even go as far to say this: 1. You wouldn’t have heard most of these tips before. 2. You’re probably doing at least 3 of the 5 mistakes unconsciously. And with the speedy shift of new platforms to sell from such as webinars, podcast and Facebook lives …I’ve been seeing some brand new mistakes occurring (and some of the old ones as well) which are all costing you the sale! The good news is they are super easy to fix. … And super easy NOT to fix if you let your unconscious habits take over. Let’s see how many of these mistakes you are doing. I’m sure that you’ll thank me for this! 1) You Teach Too Much Meaning if you are a coach or consultant, there’s a chance that you share too much of your amazing skills and ’How To’s’ up to the point where your potential client thinks they can easily do it themselves. I call this “false inspiration” the prospect doesn’t realise the depth of knowledge and support the coach will REALLY give them. I say “A coach actually buys you speed”. Check out these two scenarios: A personal trainer might show or teach too much during their sales presentation. The prospect thinks if they just take on the advice that the trainer leaked out in the conversation; train 3 days a week, keep their heart rate to a certain intensity, and lift weights once a week. They now think they hold the secret to shred body fat, so they may as well save the money and do it themselves. I had a Naturopath as a guest speaker at my latest Mastermind Conference Retreat full of female entrepreneurs. She discussed how to manage their adrenals and not to get burned out which many women in business suffer from. After the discussion, she then sold an Adrenal testing kit in which the majority of the audience didn’t buy as they felt like they had enough information to help manage their adrenals and won’t be in need to do the test. 2) You Didn’t Ask For The Sale Many sales are lost because you didn’t actually ask the customer to make a buying decision. How frustrating, especially if you asked all the right questions that had them frothing at the mouth and then they ended up thanking you. BIG hint is that if your customer says, “Thanks so much. I appreciate your time” and never actually gave you an objection, well guess what…. you didn’t get the sales nor an objection because you didn’t ask for the sale. So how do you ask? I could write a full chapter on how to ask for the sale (well, I have a full module in my Reverse Selling System). But for now, try this super soft not overly pushy close. “So with all that information, would you like to go ahead and give it a try?” TRY is NOT a word you want to hear from a friend relating to coming to your party. However, the word TRY in a sales process is such a nice way to close. It’s a word that releases pressure, it’s a word the allows flexibility. Absolutely perfect when you are negotiator! Now understand, to try it, they need to buy it. They will never know how great it is until they try it. PLUS if it is a contractual basis, sometimes there are exit fees in a clause so it works with long-term commitments as well. You may give a 7-day cooling off period or 30-day guarantees so that also helps get them off the fence and has you feeling integral to the word TRY. Either way, just Ask for them to buy the answer at the end of your presentation otherwise the answer will always be ‘NO’! 3) You Didn’t Ask Enough Buying Questions I see more people turn their prospects off instead of turning them on. This happens when you do all the talking and telling them how great your product or service is. What you should do instead is, at the start of the sale 80% of your presentation, ask a stack of buying questions that would help the customer make very clear decisions. Did you know that a customer has a looping process that helps them make decisions? This is called the decision decider. Some people need to loop in two (2) times and they feel empowered to buy (while others could be up to 4). To reduce the “will I or not buy” saga in your customers’ head ensure you ask quality buying questions as this significantly lowers objections. 4) Too Much Logic This one is unfair. As you become more of an expert of your craft, the more logical your conversation/presentation could become. Now this also ties in with tip #1: You probably start to teach more so your closing rate drops because the prospect would think they already know the secret sauce. To make a buying decision, the customers’ hypothalamus (sounds like hypo- thal-a-mus) comes into play as soon as they see your product or service being a massive reward or see it as some type of fulfilling pleasure. This creates a neurotransmitter response called dopamine. This gets fired off which has the prospect feel incredibly positive…it’s an endorphin. Ensuring you have a well-laid out presentation that truly shows the benefits of your product and how it will incredibly help them is the key! Sometimes you are turning off your customers as you get too technical and logical. It makes them bogged down too much in the nitty-gritty instead of seeing the value of what it can do for them. 5) A Tired Customer Doesn’t Buy Things to deeply consider How long are your presentations? How long does it take to connect with their needs and explain your product to them? Are they still 100% alert and engaged until the end of your presentation to make a buying decision? How much paperwork do you have to do? The length of a presentation is vital especially if there is need to do paperwork at the end of it. Now, if that paperwork is contracts (that’s logical by the way) ensure your presentation isn’t over an hour from end-to-end works best for most industries. Do you book appointments at night? Then, another thing you need to take into an account again is the length of your presentation. If you book a time at 7:30pm and your presentation goes for an hour, the prospects circadian rhythms (brain is preparing to sleep) can kick in around 8:30/9pm. You might always find that you get objection in the evening and they want to “think about it”…or they’ll “get the paperwork to you in the morning”. Lastly, a tired customer doesn’t buy in reference as to how much information you are giving them… (Once again, this reverts back to tip #1). In closing… (that sounds a little formal doesn’t it !) I could put money on it that you’d be doing at least 3 of the 5, and it’s not your fault! It’s that you never signed up to be a sales person; it just happened organically. If you are super serious in lifting your game up and making your sales process easier then grab a hold of my most popular sales training webinar ‘How To Sell Without Being Pushy’. It’s free and will take all the guess work out for you. Success & Happiness, Annette Lackovic
