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Sometimes salespeople do some pretty thoughtless things that make people roll their eyes. Your prospects might not roll their eyes–they just might think that they should. I can promise you that they’re not going to buy from you.


Some people, including salespeople, are clueless. They have no idea they’re making mistakes. Here are a few situations where salespeople have made my eyes roll.

Price increases without value increases.
Just imagine you were selling a product and you wanted to increase its value. You might think, more valuable products cost more, so I’ll raise my price. So you decide to raise your price. I’ve seen this one attempted too many times. Do you think it sounds like a good idea? I just rolled my eyes.

Just waving your magic wand doesn’t make your product more valuable. Instead, you must do something that actually does increase your product’s value. One place to start is to recognize that you have provided value in the past, but didn’t demonstrate it to your customers.

You make a lame attempt to ask for a referral.
You probably know that referrals are great prospects because they are more likely to buy. You have built in trust created when it’s a good referral. That makes it easier to sell. Now, imagine that you ask for a referral at a first time meeting when the person you’re asking doesn’t really know you or your work. I’ve seen this too many times to count. I don’t even think about rolling my eyes. I just walk away.

Referrals are only great prospects because the person getting the referral trusts the person giving the referral. Now imagine that the person giving the referral calls a prospect and says, “I know you’re asking for a recommendation on X. I know someone who sells X, but I don’t know how good it is or anything about the person.”

How likely do you think that the referral is going to be successful for you? If you think it will be successful, I would have rolled my eyes.

Make your customer feel stupid.
Do you have customers and prospects who ask a lot of questions? That annoys some salespeople. They think if the customer is asking questions that means that the customer is questioning the salesperson’s knowledge. That’s not necessarily true.

Some people ask a lot of questions because they are risk averse. They need to know the answers to be comfortable making a buying decision.

Now imagine you’re the impatient salesperson hearing one too many question. You reply, “You don’t need to know that.” Did you gasp instead of roll your eyes? I heard a salesman say this.

Sometimes salespeople do some pretty thoughtless things that make people roll their eyes. Your prospects might not roll their eyes–they just might think that they should. I can promise you that they’re not going to buy from you.

About the author

Maura Schreier-Fleming

Maura Schreier-Fleming is the President of Best@Selling. Maura works with business and sales professionals…

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