Common Mistakes Businesses Make With Sales Calls

If you want to increase the number of quality sales calls you have as well as the outcome of them (clients and conversions), this article is going to highlight common mistakes service businesses are often making with their sales conversations. 

As a recovered sales-call-avoider to now passionate sales-call-encourager, I’ve made all these mistakes (plus many more) - so I can speak from experience as a business and marketing consultant that any one can become great at sales.

1. Your prospects aren’t wanting a solution

Don’t get into sales conversations with people who don’t want their problem solved. There’s a million people who have problems they don’t actually want solved and trying to convince them is like pushing a rock up a hill.

Ask yourself (and your marketing), who’s attention are you grabbing? Who are you speaking with? Who are you offering your time to? Where are you finding these people? Speak more to the people who want their problems solved and solved soon. 

2. Your prospects haven’t been qualified before booking a sales call

If you’re an owner-operator in particular, it’s far too demanding on your scarce time to be speaking to prospects who aren’t the right fit to work with you. When your prospects book in for a conversation with you to see how you can help them, ask them relevant questions to gather whether they are the right people you should be speaking with.

TIP: If they don’t take the time to answer your questions (say in a Calendly system), they’re probably not going to be great clients to work with if they make it that far. Make it mandatory that they answer your questions in order to have a slice of your precious time. You should be qualifying them as much as they are qualifying you as a possible solution to their problem.

3. Your prospects aren’t feeling the pain or seeing the problem

Most service businesses are professional problem solvers, you’re often not selling your prospects a beautiful holiday destination they can escape to. So, it’s important for your prospects to know you see their pain, you understand their problem and you have a solution for them.

This starts by asking your prospects questions around the pain they’re feeling, how long it’s been like this, what have they tried before etc. - all of these questions provoke pain but it’s what’s needed in order to present a solution (your services) that’s going to help them.

4. Your sales calls don’t have a structure and process

Don’t drink your own kool-aid and think that you can ramble your way through sales conversations in order to sign up clients, every business needs a sales call process. The short-cut is to obviously model someone else's successful process (which isn’t a bad idea with the right process and training), the key here is to always make it your own.

I was once given a perfect six step sales call structure and would always trip up at step 3 and 4 - so I changed it until it worked more for me and how I like to naturally have conversations. You can still have a natural conversation with your prospects while following a sales structure and process. 

5. You’re not presenting your services (and prices) on the sales call 

When they were listing the world's most common fears, they forgot to mention saying your prices on sales calls takes the top spot for business owners. The worst thing you can do on a sales call is have someone really eager and excited to work with you, for you to then say, “I’ll send you a quote / proposal”.

Take a moment to explain how you can help and share what the investment looks like, it takes an extra 3 minutes and it’s the 3 minutes that will make all the difference to your business. It saves delays by helping your prospects have all the information they need to start work with you. It also does them a HUGE favour because they can come to a decision faster without it lingering over them.

Your sales calls and conversations are absolutely worth taking the time to improve so you can increase your conversions and help more people. Imagine confidently knowing you’re able to turn prospects into clients in a matter of minutes, simply using your words. In my next article I’ll share how to grow and strengthen your team, a catalyst to growing your business which you’ll need if you’re getting better at sales!

In the meantime, listen to my top 10 podcast Good Marketing, Good Business on your favourite podcast listening platform or click below:

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