Even experienced salespeople often make mistakes dealing with customers that are easy to avoid. However, it is harder to deal with problems caused by the mistakes. The most common sales errors are promises, discounts, ignorance of customer´s needs and wasting time talking to people who do not have decision making authority. How to avoid these mistakes were described at Sales.about.com.
1) Too many promises
When you are short of your quota and time is running out, you may be tempted to promise something what you cannot fulfil later. The same can happen if you make a mistake and you customer gets mad at you. By not meeting your promises in the end, you will lose customers´ trust probably forever. It is not easy to build trust with customers so promise only what you can actually deliver.
2) Unreasonable discounts
Plenty of salespeople consider offering discounts as an easy way to close the deal. Sometimes a discount can really help you close the deal. But offering discounts has also downsides. Your customer can get use to discounts and will not be willing to buy at the regular price. Moreover, too many discounts will kill off your profit so at the end it is not financially useful.
3) Ignorance of customer needs
Customers are not interested in the actual products as much as in outcomes. They do not want bigger and more expensive batteries, but for example chance to talk on the phone for hours without running out of juice. You cannot find out customer´s needs without asking the right questions. It you want to be successful in sales, you have to find out this information at the very beginning and adjust your sales pitch to it.
4) Effort to sell to a non-decision-maker
Not every member of the company is authorized to make decisions. Dealing with these people is usually a waste of your time. So it is useful at the beginning, to find out who is the decision maker and try make initial contact. Also find out whether there are multiple decision-makers involved in the purchase. In this case it is better to connect with them all at once.
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