Salescraft Training: Selling for success
Selling for Success is your go-to podcast for leveling up in the world of sales. Each episode delivers actionable tips, insider strategies, and real-life stories from top sales pros who’ve been in the trenches. Whether you’re closing deals, building relationships, or just starting out in sales, we break down the techniques, mindset, and hustle you need to turn every opportunity into success. Tune in, sharpen your skills, and start selling for success—one episode at a time.
And, find out more about my online courses at: https://www.salescraft.training
Salescraft Training: Selling for success
How to avoid 3 common mistakes that sales people make
We explore three common mistakes that underperforming salespeople repeatedly make and provide simple fixes to improve both sales numbers and enjoyment of the sales process.
• Know your product and understand its specific benefits for each customer, not generic benefits
• Listen to customers rather than dominating conversations out of fear of losing control
• Recognize different personality types using frameworks like DISC profiling
• Adapt your follow-up strategy based on whether clients make quick decisions or need time
• Build trust by being honest about product limitations rather than overselling
• Develop long-term relationships that lead to repeat business and valuable referrals
• Adopt a service mindset focused on genuinely helping clients rather than just making sales
Check out our website for a free one-hour webinar that provides additional techniques you can apply immediately to improve your sales results.
Welcome to the podcast!
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Graham Elliott
You can contact me at graham@salescraft.training
My website is www.salescraft.training
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Hello again and welcome to another podcast. Now, in this podcast, I want to build a little on what I covered in the previous podcast, but I want to take it from a slightly different perspective. So I'm going to talk about three mistakes that I've seen salespeople make repeatedly, and these are very simple things to fix, and when you fix them, the chances are that you're going to find quite a difference in not only your sales numbers you should certainly see an improvement but perhaps even how enjoyable it is the sales process, because I know a lot of people probably enjoy one aspect of it just talking to the client, but when it comes to closing and things like that, that's where it starts to get a bit uncomfortable. So the idea of this podcast is to bring the fun back. So the first thing I want to talk about is knowing your product. Now, you may know your product very well, or your service. You might not know it very well at all. So obviously the first thing to understand is essentially what it is that you're selling.
Speaker 1:Now we used to have, when I started sales, we had a thing called features, advantages, benefits, so your fabs, and that was how I was taught to approach selling a product, and so, just to give an example of that, if we look at a car, a feature might be it has four-wheel drive. Another feature might be that it has a tailgate at the back, and another one might be that it can take four adult passengers. So they're all features, they're just things that it has. These are things you can tick off on a spec sheet. So what are the advantages of those? Well, the advantage of four-wheel drive is that you can take it off-road. You can use the vehicle in difficult conditions, so maybe heavy snow or mud or whatever it might be. So there are certain advantages that that feature delivers, and obviously, with a tailgate, that might offer more flexibility in how you carry whatever it is you're carrying, how you get access to it, and the advantage of being able to carry four adult passengers is that you can carry four adult passengers if that's what you need to do.
Speaker 1:And then we would go on to the benefits. So what is the benefit of having four-wheel drive? Well, this is where I kind of stepped back from what I was taught, because there would also be another list there of what the benefits were. But this is where I believe these things are only benefits if they are something that that particular client needs or would like. And this is an important distinction, because you can walk in with your fabs features, advantages and benefits.
Speaker 1:And features and advantages fair enough, they're straightforward. But they may well not be of benefit at all to your clients. If you have a client who never goes off road, is in maybe an urban area that doesn't get extremes of weather, forward drive could be completely useless and all it does is add weight, adds complexity to the vehicle. Again, a hatchback may or may not be useful to them. So how do you know? How do you know what the benefits are? Well, you do that by talking to your client and actually listening to what they say.
Speaker 1:So this now ties in with not only the last podcast, previous podcast, but also other podcasts. And this is just so fundamental, and the reason that I keep coming back to it is that this is the one thing that I have seen underperforming salespeople do repeatedly. They don't listen to the customer, they try and retain control of the meeting by talking, and what they'll tend to talk about are the features, advantages and benefits of what they're offering as they understand them, and to me this is, in a way, down to a fear of losing control of the sale. It's a fear of the client starting to get some control of the conversation and if they do that, they might ask a question that the sales person can't answer. Or they might ask a sales question or a question about the product or service that the sales person is afraid of getting because they don't have a good response to it. So they tend to just talk. They try not to let the client talk or get a word in and honestly, I've seen this it's quite alarming in many ways and it's a great way to lose business.
Speaker 1:Because if you imagine, if you're having a conversation with someone, if you can't get a word in, if they just talk, how do you feel about that person Speaking? Personally, I don't feel particularly positive about them. I just want them to be quiet and go. It may be that I have some genuine questions and a genuine interest in something, but if I can't speak and if I can't be heard, there's a very good chance I'm going to just let that person finish talking and then just leave, because it becomes too hard to fight my way into the conversation to actually try and buy from them. So I'm hoping that makes a little bit of sense.
Speaker 1:So the key thing there is really to understand your product. You really must understand what it is you're offering, at least to a degree that is reasonable for what you're offering. So if you have something very technical and it goes very deeply technical that as a salesperson and I used to do this kind of stuff I would know some of it, but there were certainly depths that I didn't understand I wouldn't go down to. And this is where I would either write down questions, if they came up, and go to somebody who knew and then get back to the client or just bring in a technical specialist if that's what was needed. So do what you have to do, but do learn what you need to know about the product or service that you're offering. But don't assume that's the whole story. So it's really important to have that conversation with the client to make sure that the things that you perceive as benefits they also are perceiving as benefits Because they're not, then your whole pitch is going to be wasted. You're just wasting your time. So that's the very first one. It's to really understand the customer's requirement as it applies to your product or service and make sure that you have a good match.
Speaker 1:Now the second thing I want to talk about is the follow-up. So in the sales training course I offer, we go through a behavioral profiling system called DISC, which you may or may not know about. And the reason that I like to use DISC is that it talks about four different personality types. Essentially, with DISC, we all have within us all four particular behavioral types, but one or two of them are likely to be more dominant, so they're likely to be more significant in us and certainly be more significant when it comes to how we behave and how we react in certain situations. And the nice thing about it is it's actually relatively easy to get a fairly good idea of which one of those four behavioral types your client is likely to have as their main type, their main type of behavior. And in knowing that, you actually get a lot of information, so you'll learn things you'll know Are they a good client to have? Are they likely to be somebody who will come back again and again? Are they likely to be difficult as a client? How do you have to build trust with them? Do you do a lot of talking? Do you build a relationship or do you just get straight to the point? And there are many other aspects to it, so I'm not going to go into this in this podcast, but it's covered in the course.
Speaker 1:It's something I find really useful for just understanding people. So the reason I'm mentioning this is that, for some types of people, you may well have a meeting, do a presentation or have a discussion and close the deal there, and then Some people operate that way. They don't like to have a long, drawn-out process. A lot of others, though, they will never do that. They need to understand in perhaps some detail what it is that you're offering. They want time to think about it, and that time is important. So if you try and pressure them, you're likely to turn them off, and often you'll have to make multiple points of contact.
Speaker 1:This is about building up trust, which I'm going to talk about next, and it's recognizing which types of client where you have to do that and also which ones you're likely to get a quick answer from. So the important thing is to understand which type of person you're speaking to and then adapt your approach to suit them and even acknowledge it. Well, if it's someone who you believe will close straight away, you can use language to support that. So it can be. I can see that you want to make a decision quickly. If you use language to support that, so it can be. I can see that you want to make a decision quickly. If you are able to do something today, we can do. You know, add the fries, as it were. You know, add the extra things you can include for a quick order. But other people won't do that. So if it's somebody who needs time, the comment will be more like okay, I've gone through everything. I believe I understand what it is you need. I believe there are no more questions. But please let me know if there are any more questions, and I know you're going to want to think about it. So would it be okay if I followed up with you again on Thursday of next week and we just see where you are Now?
Speaker 1:For some people, making a statement like that feels like leaving an open goal, to use a football or soccer kind of reference. It leaves room for somebody else to come in. But in fact, with some people, that's exactly what they want to hear, because what you're demonstrating is that you understand their buying process, how they like to go about buying things, and you're not applying pressure to them. Somebody who needs that time will not respond well. If you pressure to them, what they're likely to do is say, yes, that's fine, that's fine, let me think about it, maybe you could come back tomorrow, something like that. But when you try and get to them again, they'll go. You won't see them again because those people also tend to be very conflict diverse. They imagine that there will be a conflict if they are direct with you, say no to your face, so they're more likely to say what they think you want to hear, just to get you out of the door and then, once you've gone, you won't be able to get to that person again.
Speaker 1:So be sensitive to the buying style of your client and do follow up. I find the best way to follow up is to agree with them during that conversation when you are going to follow up and make sure they're happy with that. If you say, can I follow up on Tuesday at, let's say, 10 o'clock Tuesday morning, they might say, no, that's no good, could you call me at two in the afternoon? You've got agreement that you've got some buy-in from the client. You're respecting them, their time, them having to do their job. So be very sensitive to the type of personality you're talking to and then follow up appropriately.
Speaker 1:And then the final thing is to just be conscious about building up trust. Now, as I've already said, there are some client types who will make a decision very quickly and they're the kind of people you can turn up on the door. You may even cold call and walk out with an order. They just see a problem, they want a solution. You look like a good fit. They'll just take a chance and go. Now. They might ask you some questions. It's not always that simple, but it is possible to certainly contact a brand new prospect and get a deal the same day, but equally, as I've said, be very clear with people and understand if they need a longer time. Now, this is the sort of time aspect, but also building trust with. Depending on what it is you offer. It might be something that people tend to buy very quickly, or it might be something that's more of an investment. So it really is important that you build trust.
Speaker 1:And this pretty much comes back to the first item I mentioned, which is to understand what the benefits are to this specific client not generally, but what are the benefits of your product or solution to this specific client and be very honest about it. Be honest about limitations. They might want social proof. Some people their buying style is to see. They want to see other people using it. But always be honest. And if you spot a limitation, my advice is to flag it to them. Say, look, we can do most of what you want, but I think we're going to have an issue in this area. The best we can do for you is whatever you can do for them. How would that work for you? Give them the option Again.
Speaker 1:I've seen salespeople do this who basically lie to get the order and all you do is create a rod for your own back. You lose trust instantly with people. You'll get a bad reputation. Remember that people talk. So it is far, far better to be honest. Even if you don't make that particular sale, what's likely to happen is they will come back to you the next time because they know they can trust you. And this is so important. And this takes me on to the final aspect of this, and that's to look at long-term relationships. So if you just are there to grab a quick order and you're prepared to lie to do it, you might get that order, but you probably won't get any follow-up orders and you may well find suddenly that a lot of doors are being closed on you because word is getting around that you're not to be trusted, that you will lie, and who wants to buy from someone who'll lie to them? So look at the long term, build trust. The great thing about that as well is that you can often get referrals quite easily. Remember, referrals are warm leads. You're not going in cold. Think about it. If someone referred something to you, you know that person who's made the referral. If they're telling you something is good, it will help you out. You're already partway down that path to actually buy, so you're much more open to listening and having a look at what's on offer.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that is pretty much what I wanted to cover in this particular podcast. It's been a little bit on the short side, but really just to recap very briefly when it comes to your product, you do need to know the product technically. If it's technical products and service, you need to understand, you know the technicalities of what it does and how it does it. So that, because you need that in order to qualify your clients first of all, remember, you'll have one avatar per offer. So the avatar is your ideal client and in the qualifying part of your sales process, you need to be making sure that this prospect is as close to your avatar as you can get. But having got that far, it's then really important to listen and have that conversation with the client to make sure that the benefits you've got features and advantages they will stay the same, but the benefits are appropriate for that client.
Speaker 1:So another example I like to use is well, not so much now, suppose, but speaker phones. Going back a bit, and this is obviously uh, mobiles, but, um, these days, cellular phones um have a loudspeaker mode, so that might be useful. Um, what's the advantage of loudspeaker mode? Loudspeaker mode is a feature. The advantage is that you can have your hands free.
Speaker 1:If you, if your hearing isn't so good, it might be better if you wear a hearing aid or something good, it might be better If you wear a hearing aid or something like that. That might be much more comfortable for you, so that may be a benefit. For example, if you do have hearing problems, that would be an absolute benefit for that person. If, however, you're working in an open plan office or in cafes and things like that, then maybe not so much because you're going to be getting across other people's conversations. It's going to be a bit of a mess. So you need to think about this.
Speaker 1:Think about how your product or solution is used. Where it's used, how is this person going to use it themselves, and do the advantages and the sort of loose benefits that you've identified, do they apply to this person? Again, when it comes to follow-ups the second thing be aware that some people will need multiple follow-ups. So don't give up, but learn to recognize the personality types and this is where this can be very helpful and also that some people will buy straight away. So, again, but it's about recognizing those types of people who just want to get it done quickly.
Speaker 1:And then, finally, the other thing to be conscious of is simply building trust. It's about going for the long term. It's about serving your customers, serving your client for the long term. It's about serving your customers, serving your client and this is something that I come back to a lot in these podcasts and in the course If you have a service mindset, if you are there to serve your client the best way you can, that just puts you in a completely different space than the person who's just trying to make the next deal so they can make their target or not get fired or whatever. It might be Okay. So I hope you found that useful. That's it for this one. Please remember to like and subscribe, and please take a look at the website. There is a free one-hour webinar there that runs through in a bit more detail some techniques that you can apply straight away if you are finding you're having difficulties with some aspects of your selling. So thank you for your time and I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye, for.