6 Little Known Factors That Are Costing You Sales

In a previous post, I covered how a door-to-door salesman used Robert Cialdini’s Influence triggers to sell me a six month supply of frozen chicken breasts.

After breaking down what happened, I was impressed with how well Cialdini’s framework explained how the salesman persuaded me to buy.

Which brings up a question, what about the opposite?  Is there a framework for how to blow sales?  How to not persuade someone to buy?

After days of analysis,  I have isolated six factors guaranteed to not persuade.  Alone – any one of them can blow the sale.  Together – they are an unstoppable force that can drive your customers away at full sprint never to return.

What are they?

1. You Tolerate Dissatisfied Customers

If someone we know and trust chooses to not do something, we are more likely to not do it too.

If your neighbor tells you that they don’t go to a local mechanic because that mechanic is too expensive, you are likely to forever close your mind to going to that mechanic.

What’s worse, you are also likely to spread that negative social proof to others – even though you had no first hand experience.  The cycle continues until the mechanic is driven out of business.

The obvious message is – never let a customer walk away unhappy.  Be aggressive about managing what they say about you to others.

2. You Are a Poser

We tend to ignore people that don’t know what they’re talking about.

There’s no surer way to lose credibility than to pretend to know things that you don’t (aka “posers”).  Sure, con-men do it all the time.  But, most of us aren’t that good at lying.

The second that you start freewheeling with the facts, your prospect’s “gut” will tell him something’s wrong.  Worse, he might even be pretending he doesn’t know anything, just to see if he is in good hands.

The advice:  Be honest. Trust is more important to customers than having the foremost authority.  If you can deliver for them, that’s all they really care about.

3. You Aren’t Friendly

We avoid people we dislike

I’ll never forget the time I walked up to a watch-repair kiosk in the mall.  I needed a link removed from my Timex.  The guy at the stand had about as much personality as crabby taxi driver.

He made no effort at small talk.  He showed no concern that the watch would fit me after.  He just said it would take 20 minutes and cost 20 bucks.  I walked away.  Why?  I just didn’t like him.

The moral of this story is: if you aren’t like-able, figure out how to be like-able, or get out of sales.

4. You Ask for the Sale Too Soon

We don’t take action until we’re mentally prepared for it

Like the girl who asks you to meet her parents on the second date, trying to close the sale too soon creates panic in your prospect.

Nobody likes abrupt change.  We like to be led in small steps.  Why?  It gives us a chance to mentally prepare.  To consider the consequences in advance.  To anticipate the possibilities.

The plan: do what most salespeople already do – create a process that gets your customer comfortable, then ask for the sale.

5.  You Hide What’s Behind the Curtain

If someone withholds something from us, we feel obligated to withhold in return

Free samples, try-it-before-you-buy-it, test drives -these techniques are commonplace in the sales process.  If you want to stand out like a sore thumb and set off a five-alarm warning in your prospect’s mind, don’t offer one.

Refusing to give a preview of what’s to come raises suspicion.  A suspicious prospect doesn’t buy.

Combat this by creating a trial of your end product.  You can create a trial size, reduce the feature set, whatever.  There are plenty of examples out there to mimic – somebody in your industry is using this technique effectively.

6. You Let Them “Think About It” Forever

If there is no reason to act now, we will put it off forever.

It seems like the nice thing to do at the time – to give your prospect some alone time to “think about it”.  And, it is a nice thing to do.  But it’s an even nicer thing to push someone off the fence.

Forcing devices – like time-sensitive discounts or limited quantities – help your prospect activate their decision making muscle.  If they really benefit from your product, you are doing them a huge favor.  You are helping them get that benefit sooner.

What to do?  Offer time-sensitive discounts or bonuses for taking action now.  There are dozens of tricks in this bag.  Just don’t let the prospect walk away without a clock ticking in the back of their mind.

Don’t Laugh – Do Something About It

There’s our list.  You probably found some of the items laughable.  Me too.  Who would do such an obviously stupid thing? It seems so obvious on paper.

But out in the real world, we encounter examples of these sales killers every day.  All of us at one time or another lose the edge – and it costs us sales.

Take the list and think about your sales process.  Are you committing any of these?  If so, fix it.  The fixes are easy and are mostly a change in mind set.

If you think I’ve missed anything, please add it to the comment section below.