Checklist of 36 mistakes of sales managers (with solutions)

My darling telephone sales department where I worked

Extensive telephone sales guide for b2b, part 4 of 4. I have compiled the most common mistakes sales managers have made. You can easily increase the effectiveness of telephone sales by avoiding the errors. References to the previous parts of the article are indicated at the beginning of the article. However, you will not need them. This part is separate from the previous ones and has absorbed everything.

In the previous parts:

Stages of sales. Making contact Identifying Needs - Part 1 of 4
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Presentation of the product, work with objections, completion of the transaction - part 2 of 4

How to create a sales script, how to get around the secretary - part 3 of 4

1. Lack of smile in voice

You must admit that when you are offered to buy something in a tired voice, you immediately feel that this product has been tried unsuccessfully to sell many times already. The client feels in such a situation that they are trying to “rub” something completely unnecessary for him. And on the contrary, with people whose voice radiates joy and goodwill, we are pleased to have a deal, they want to trust.



Decision

Life hacking: if you really smile while talking on the phone, the client will feel it in your voice. Experienced managers often know how to speak with a “smile in their voice” and without a smile on their face, and this is achieved through practice. Here I still have a reflexive smile, if I speak on the phone. In just one and a half years of work, this became a habit. It will be easier for you to accustom yourself to this if you look at your face in the mirror during a conversation: this way you will more often catch yourself in the absence of a smile.

2. Ignorance of the mat. parts

Have you tried to explain to someone the essence of the subject, about which you know nothing? And have you tried to sell this item, telling about its strengths?

It is very difficult to beautifully present your product and work out objections when there is too little knowledge in the head about this product. Often, arrogant managers do not devote enough time to study a product, believing that their skill is enough to sell even a product about which they themselves know little.



Decision

The problem is solved by continuous training, which includes a section with the subtleties of the product. Only knowing all the pros and cons, you can make competent sales tactics, allowing to increase the company's profit. Let a knowledgeable person ask you the maximum possible number of questions on the product. Next, write down those questions that you can not give a confident answer. Make a training plan and find answers to all questions. Repeat 2-3 times with different knowledgeable people.

3. Familiarity

Remember, once an unfamiliar man from the street approached you, addressed to “you” and asked to throw money for a trip?

After watching the infobusinessmen trainings, many conclude that if you need to avoid unnecessary formalities in the conversation, then you need to contact the client for "you." This is a blunder, especially in b2b, because the conversation is usually conducted with someone who is authorized to make decisions. Imagine: such a Big Boss is sitting here, and then a twenty-year-old guy on the other end of the wire starts to “poke” him, and also tries to sell something there.



Decision

It is enough to study the rules of business etiquette, listen to a couple of dozen conversations of professional managers, and you will understand how to approach communication with customers. Finding the "middle ground" is not easy, but it becomes possible if you have a wit and the Internet.

4. Overconfidence

Do you think you see a client through? Many managers, especially with experience, often begin to think in this way. This is a blunder, since such self-confidence becomes the cause of unnecessary carelessness, carelessness. Such a manager is unlikely to work "to the fullest", being sure that 30% of the effort will be enough for him. Usually such self-confidence is observed among the “stars” - those who have been working for years and can boast some achievements.



Decision

To get rid of excess self-confidence, you can listen to a number of the most unsuccessful conversations with customers, in order to sink into a reality in which no one can ever know anything for sure. If this does not help, then poor performance will become an excellent motivation, after which you may rethink your confidence.

5. Complicated greeting

After all, you definitely heard such greetings that later you had to think for 5 more seconds: “Damn it, what did it all just happen to be ?!”. Did you have a desire to continue the conversation after such a greeting?



Decision

Greetings should not use words with a double meaning, difficult to pronounce words, as well as those that are poorly perceived by the ear. Simply put, all those words that may be misunderstood or not heard at all.

6. Speech too fast

Can you imagine a panic voice from which a head quickly begins to ache? That’s what your voice sounds like when you talk too fast when talking to a customer over the phone. It sounds as if you are in a hurry and are trying to “shoot off” your prepared phrases as soon as possible in order to quickly run home and turn off the iron that has already incinerated your favorite shirt.



Decision

To get rid of this is quite simple: you can listen to each of your conversation or every tenth - it does not matter. The point is to constantly remind yourself that you need to do something with it. You can even ask a friend to sit next to you and pinch you painfully whenever you try to scare a client with your panicked voice.

7. Speech too slow

Ooo, very boring conversation, from which I want to get rid of as soon as possible. This is reminiscent of the feeling when you walk along a narrow road, and the person in front of you weaves like a turtle. True, annoying?

We had one guy at work who said so-and-ak slowly that it was possible to fall asleep while he uttered a greeting. Clearly, most customers could not stand this infinitely long hell. However, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that it was quite pleasant for the pensioners to communicate with him, since at a faster pace they could sometimes miss something and miss an important detail.



Decision

You can get rid of the problem in the same way as in the previous paragraph: listen to your dialogues, and also ask your friend to watch you and constantly point out this error so that you do not forget about it.

8. Monotone speech

How do you like this: calling cold and indifferent to all the people who are trying to convince you that working with him will increase your profits. To put it mildly, so-so offer.

I will continue the story about the uniqueness of my former colleague: the same guy, besides speaking slowly, spoke everything in a completely monotonous voice. Even programs that synthesize speech have in their arsenal a greater range of emotions than this guy. Your speech should be lively and interesting, it is impossible to convince a person, speaking all with one voice. I would even say that it is not so important what exactly you are saying. The main thing is how you say, with what emotions, what emphasis you put, using different intonations.



Decision

Start reading poems. I mean out loud, in public, consisting of strangers to you. Such strikes on self-esteem (and they will be) will be a good incentive for you to learn expressiveness, so that your presentations in conversation will be exciting and beautiful.

9. Illiterate speech

It would seem: what's the difference, to say "two hundred" or "two hundred"? Many people in everyday life use the second option. But sales managers are not the people who should be "many." Speech should be perfect: no cake with plum jam, bought for about two hundred rubles. But I’m not going to say anything about burry people: it often becomes a special “trick” of a manager, especially in cases when negotiations are conducted with the same clients.



Decision

Find yourself a perfectionist listener who is fluent in the language. Found? Now download texts with complex words, in which everyone usually makes mistakes when pronouncing (there are such texts). Read this perfectionist out loud. If you manage to survive - the problem will be solved after a few such texts.

10. No equal contact.

Do you contact the client by name and patronymic while he calls you simply by name? Congratulations, the client dominates you, and your value and importance in his eyes tends to zero. If the client calls you only by name, then you call him only by name. Address him as formally as he is to you: your cooperation is not a favor in your direction, but a mutually beneficial partnership.



Decision

Like most problems, this can be solved with the help of a friend who will tweak you whenever you grovel. Why do I suggest pinching? Because you deserve it, just make a mistake. Joke. If this is not unpleasant (corrections of a friend), then it will be harder for you to relearn.

11. The client does not know who he is talking to.

Just imagine: noname is calling you and “from the doorstep” talks about what great websites he makes. It may seem funny, but it is very unlikely that you will continue to have a conversation with him. Is it just to cheer yourself up.

Often, managers are forgotten and immediately “get down to business”, completely forgetting about introducing themselves. What your client will be curious to know about you: your name, your place of work, your position, the purpose of your call. Not knowing this, he simply does not understand how to talk to you. As a rule, if a person cannot find out how to do better - he simply avoids committing an act, as this usually carries fewer dangers than an ill-considered act. Simply put, if the client does not know with whom he is talking - your conversation is not set.



Decision

If you catch yourself not having introduced yourself during a conversation, punish yourself: take a list of your friends on social networks (at least 100 people) and present each of them on paper. Present as if you are going to acquaint him with your client, describing everything you need. It is quite difficult and boring, so after a series of similar punishments you will find it easier to correct.

12. Rare usage of client name

A proper name is the sweetest sound for every person. It will be much easier for you to make emotional contact and enter into the trust of the client if you call him by name.



Decision

Cross out all “common” messages. Especially such as "young man", "man", "girl", "woman", etc. I remember, I somehow could not stand it and turned to the client "lady", but this is a completely different story ... To form in the habit of calling a customer by name can be done with penalties. For each “common” appeal found in the dialogue, give your colleague, say, 50 rubles. First, you will not like to lose money, and secondly, a colleague will be more willing to help you.

13. Incorrect customer name pronunciation

I think everyone understands that in Russia one can increasingly find a name like Kim or Wilen. Often these kinds of names are voiced incorrectly and this usually offends the client. Do you know the worst? The fact that the client is very unlikely to correct you and until the end of the dialogue you will incorrectly pronounce the name of the client. As a result, what we have: the client gets annoyed more and more each time, but is silent. And you can not even understand why the conversation is so tight.

During the day I had to talk with 2-4 hundreds of people and I remember several cases when incorrect customer data was opened in CRM. Imagine all the pain of the situation when the client's name is Tamara Ivanovna, and I call her all the conversation Irina Vasilyevna, and she, in turn, does not tell me anything about it. And after the conversation, the program still decides to upload the necessary information, and I understand that the whole dialogue did not call the person by his name, but he did not say a word to me.



Decision

Download hundreds of tongue twisters from complex names. If you do not find - make your own. Every time before you start dialing - speak every patter. Over time, you will learn how to pronounce even the most complex names. There is nothing you can do about the situation in my story, as you understand.

Life hacking

It will be easier to fill the patter with names if you write down the names of those clients that were difficult for you to pronounce or, if everything is really bad, that you could not pronounce and hung up in a panic. So you do not have to spend extra time searching for names for patter.

14. Manager’s name is too complicated

If your name is difficult to pronounce, then the client will not be comfortable talking to you, and not even because it will be difficult for him to pronounce the name. It will be awkward for the interlocutor to ask you if he says your name correctly, not to mention that he may feel ashamed if he says the name incorrectly. This situation will distract your customer from the essence of your call, which is why it will be more difficult to sell.



Decision

When I worked on sales, I often thought of Dima, although my name is Kim. It would seem: only three letters, but at first almost every dialogue I had to spell: “K & M are only three letters” or even worse: “Cyril, Irina, Mikhail”, after which I was addressed as Cyril, and sometimes as Irina, despite the gruff voice. In general, it is better to simply name that name that will be spoken correctly correctly.

Life hacking

If sales are cold (in your database), then you can be represented by the name of the client from CRM. The fact that you are namesakes will lift the mood of the client and the whole conversation will go easier. Especially if the customer's name is Albert or Ibrahim.

15. The unwillingness to hear "no"

I often watched as managers hung up the phone after the first “no”. Many people understand that this is stupid, but they still do it this way, since they start to panic. In fact, the worst customers are those who agree with everything. Their agreement is very easy to explain: they just don’t care and they don’t even listen to you. At first, I could not understand how it was: the client seemed to be happy with everything, the conversation went so smoothly, but the sale did not succeed. Failure is an indication that a customer generally understands what you are saying. This suggests that he is interested in what you are talking about. Simply put, this is exactly the bell that tells you to continue.



Decision

Download any address database and call different people with your extremely arrogant offers. The more absurd your offer, the better. For example, offer to buy a street breed dog for 30 thousand. To begin with, it’s enough to get used to hearing "no" and other negative reactions. Then you can go further: after the first “no”, anyway, try to sell the dog and so on until the person hangs up. It is important to maintain seriousness, so that the person does not decide that you are just joking.

16. Lack of identification needs

During training, my trainer taught me a lesson. The task was the following: it was necessary to sell her the service of a fictional travel agency. The service is also fictional: we ourselves could choose what to offer. I took the team captain and came up with a cool presentation of an interesting and unusual service. We were really cooler than the second team, but what a bad luck: before the presentation of our cool service, we did not find out from the client what he needed. As a result, we offered a luxury single tour with a strip bar for girls to the person who would like to get to a good ski resort with her husband and child. Now it seems obvious, but then it was not so simple. In general, the error is still relevant: many managers are trying to sell their service even before they know what the client needs.



Decision

Find in social. network a hundred unfamiliar people and try to figure out what each of them lack. Do not stop at their first answer, like “money”: get to the truth as persistently as possible. So you learn to figure out what people need, and the experiment itself will remind you of the need to identify needs. Do not think that no one will answer you: in the social. Networking has its own characteristics and people behave differently from them than during normal conversation. Try not to choose people of the opposite sex, otherwise your messages may be perceived as an act of marriage games and you will receive a music track instead of an answer.

17. Too many closed questions.

Do you want to play investigator? Better go to the police then. Clients do not like interrogations and ask a series of questions in a “yes / no” format - this is a serious mistake that will cost you the amount that you could have earned by selling if you hadn't played a bad cop. Ask more open questions and only a couple of closed questions to finally summarize the essence of the client’s thoughts.



Decision

During the week, ask someone to ask you only closed questions, so that you understand how much colder and more unpleasant communication becomes. Most likely, you will learn the lesson and will try to avoid excessive use of closed questions in a dialogue with the client.

18. Infinite identification of needs

Managers are so often blamed for the fact that they do not fully reveal the need, that they sometimes go to the other extreme: identifying a need for the sake of revealing a need. In fact, it looks like the meeting of the deputy with the tenants, where the deputy is the sales manager, and the tenant is the client. The deputy diligently asks questions about the wishes of the client, and he happily sheds his soul, but to no avail: there will be no sale anyway.



Decision

Identified one need - continue to delve into it. Do not try to identify another need. Deepen - try to try on your product for this need (in your head). Did not work - go to another need. And so do only as long as you can not try on your product for the identified needs of the client.

19. Throwing from stage to stage

Often I watched and watched as managers jumped from the stage with the identification of needs to the presentation of the product, and then back to the identification of needs. Your presentation in this case will look no more convincing than a homeless person who is trying to sell you his book on how easy it is to make money on the stock market.



Decision

Buy the most simple and cheap wall clocks. Pull the dial out. Take three markers of different colors. Divide the dial into three parts, starting at 12 o'clock. Sign each part starting at 12 o'clock: Establishing contact, identifying needs, presenting the product accordingly. Now imagine that you can’t return the stage that has already passed, how can you not return the past time. Hang your watch anywhere in the workplace so that it reminds you that these steps are strictly in order and nothing else.

20. Interrupting a client

Even if you already understand what the client meant and even if he says something about your product that is not true, do not try to interrupt him, to finish his thought instead of him or to correct his erroneous statement. This is an extremely basic and basic rule, but it is often violated. Try to follow this.



Decision

Every person has a friend who likes to interrupt. Try telling this friend a long story. Think about it. Stop doing the same. It makes sense to periodically listen to their unsuccessful conversations in order to identify such cases and remind yourself of this. Or let someone sit next to you and connect to you through an additional headset. This person can constantly correct you during a conversation with a client, thanks to which it will be easier for you to get rid of this habit.

21. Talk about life

Let's talk "for life"?In my practice, it often happened that contact with a client was established so qualitatively that he began to lead a friendly conversation with me on topics not related to the purpose of the call. Perhaps this indicates a qualitative emotional contact, but at the same time about the wrong dialogue, since this all happened. It is necessary to stop it very correctly, so that the client is not offended that you do not want to listen about how he and his wife went to sea. Often the client does this unconsciously, so if you give him a subtle hint, he will immediately take himself in hand.



Decision

* Place for your decision * - write in the comments how to act in this case, since, unfortunately, I don’t know what exactly can be said about this.

22. Attempts to argue with a client

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Decision

Use less “I think”, “I think”, “I want” and other bad phrases starting with “I”. Instead, ask for the customer's opinion: “what do you think about this?”, “You can ...”, “This gives you the opportunity ...”.

27. Stupid questions

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Decision

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Usually, when a stream of minor technical questions emanates from a client, like: “Can you do ...?” People answer: “Yes, of course, we can do that too,” losing sight of the fact that the flow of such questions can be endless - what fantasy enough.



Decision

In such cases, it is important to seize the initiative by knocking down the client’s “program” aimed at a number of minor issues. It’s not difficult to take the initiative, for this you can ask the question: “Everything suits you, except for“ this small detail ”, right?” Or “You are ready to make an order, and it remains to clarify“ this last one, I understand correctly? ”. The client will either tell you: “Yes, this couple of moments is still ok” and you will receive an order, or a client from the category “went into the store to get warm.” The second question after this simply leaves and you do not waste time on someone who hardly has an interest in working with you.

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32. Attempts to sell "one touch"

Many novice sellers are trying to sell from the first call. This is a big mistake, because if in b2c this approach still has a chance, in b2b this approach is doomed. The fact is that no one will listen to the whole essence of your commercial offer by phone, and it’s just suicide to make a decision on cooperation without getting acquainted with the offer. Sell ​​“one touch” in b2b is impossible.



Decision

Just remember the elementary scheme: they called, closed the call to drop the quotation to the post office and re-call in N days. On the appointed day, call back and even then close the conversation for sale, when the customer has read your offer and is ready to make a decision.

33. The lack of blanks for working out objections

Usually the situation is as follows: beginners do not use blanks, "medium" have a lot of blanks on pieces of paper, pros keep all blanks in their heads. Without having prepared answers to questions that a client may have in a particular conversation (and there may be more than a few dozen basic variations, depending on the quality of the sales script created), it will be very difficult to quickly and confidently fend off the client's objection. Your uncertainty will be noticed in a split second and the whole stage of work with objections will be failed.



Decision

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34.

When the deadlines are blurred, an intractable situation arises: you cannot understand - the client is still going to contact you and just thinks for a long time or is lost forever. Because of this, there is some confusion, because after calling the client again, if he is actually just going to contact you and make a payment, you will cause unnecessary suspicions. The client may decide that something is going wrong and, in order not to risk, he will simply refuse the deal. In the end: either you call someone who just thinks for a long time and cause him extra suspicion, or you don’t call and you’re wondering if the client has forgotten about you.



Decision

For example, if you called the customer for the first time and agreed that he would study your offer, after which you will call him back - be sure to stipulate the exact dates within which you will call him back. If this is the second call, then specify the exact terms of payment: “What do you think, how long will it take for you to make an advance payment?” Or an earlier version: “What do you think, how much time do you need to fill out the brief and send it to us?”. In this way, you not only set a soft deadline, but in the future you will be able to determine whether the client has disappeared or he just has not thought of contacting you. Based on this, it will be easier for you to understand how to behave in this situation.

35. Questions like: “Is it convenient for you to talk now?”

“No, inconvenient” - this will be the answer in most cases. There is no one on this planet who would be interested in a conversation with a sales manager before he starts his work. Asking the client such a question, you actually give him a reason to sneak away from you even before you have time to say something. Even if the client should have been interested in what you want to be voiced - you will not even have such an opportunity.



Decision

Instead of this question it is better to use the wording: “Tell me, Vasily, how much time are you ready to devote to our conversation?”. So the client has no direct opportunity to get away from the conversation, not to mention that if he has five minutes - you yourself can understand that there is no point in talking now, after which you can agree on a chime.

36. False Promises in the Heat of Sale

This is how I veiled a blatant lie. Often, managers get into a rage and want to get a sale in any way. Not for money, but for the feeling that they were able to convince a difficult customer. I assure you that this happens more often than it might seem. I have seen hundreds of similar cases among my colleagues, and I myself almost made this gross mistake. And I would have allowed it if I hadn't accidentally pressed the call reset button.



Decision

I do not know how to avoid this. Still, this is what is called “enter into a rage”, that a person does not quite realize himself outside the situation in which he is. If you have good ideas - there is a great place for your decision.

That's it, the list is over, as is the final part of my article on the topic of telephone sales. Good luck!

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