Salespeople, Break these 7 Habits Now!
Bad habits are hard to break.
After a long day of being on sales calls, juggling what feels like a million prospects, and filling out endless mandatory fields in your CRM, it’s easy to slip into some bad sales habits. Do you find yourself brushing off a coworker because there isn’t enough time in the day for extra chatter? Or perhaps throwing in the towel after just one bad call?
If you want to be a successful salesperson, not only should you download Spiro, but you also need to stop these terrible habits in their tracks.
1. Beating Yourself Up
In sales, we are faced with rejection often. If you are in the habit of seeing every “no” you get from a prospect as a failure, then you are going to burn out pretty quickly.
You need to redefine what it means to fail. If you are able to learn something from a “no”, then is it really a failure? Finding the ability to grow from your mistakes is one positive upside of defeat. After all, what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.
2. Being a Know-It-All
One thing I see a lot of green salespeople do is thinking they need to have an answer for everything. This is a terrible habit to get into. Not only will you alienate your coworkers by acting like a know-it-all, but you may be giving misinformation to your customers as well.
It’s always the best idea to be honest and say to a client, “I don’t know the answer to that, but I’ll find out and get back to you as soon as I can.”
3. Hoarding Your Good Ideas
Possibly worse than acting like you don’t need help from others, is not offering your assistance when your coworkers could really use some advice. This habit of hoarding your good sales solutions is not only selfish, but makes you look a bit paranoid.
A sales team needs to work together, so if your peer is selling a deal that is failing, and you have a suggestion that could save it, please jump in.
4. Seeking Out Other Debbie Downers
When things feel bleak and every pitch seems like a failure, you may be in the habit to wallow in your sorrows with the other sinking ships around you. Don’t do it!
Surround yourself with positivity and learn something from the pros that are closing the big deals.
5. Blindly Following a Career Path
Make a list of your top three skills. Are you utilizing them in your daily sales life? If not, then maybe you are in the wrong type of job. I’m not suggesting sales isn’t for you, but just following along a career path without questioning it, is a bad habit.
Do you excel in banging out cold calls? Then stick with it and don’t feel pressure to do something just because you can. Do it because you are good at it.
6. Talking the Talk, but not Walking the Walk
Standing around talking about the steps you’re going to take to close a big deal sounds like you’ve got it all together. Heck, you may have even convinced yourself that you’re a big-time, hot-shot, closer. But the habit of talking and not doing is a one you need to break.
Sometimes talking too much can make you overthink the pitch, and not only are you wasting precious time, but chances are your nerves will end up getting the best of you. Just roll up your sleeves and jump onto your next call.
7. Giving Up
Winston Churchill once said, “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” It’s easy to fall into the trap of giving up easily. Instead, you need to drop this habit and find something you are enthusiastic about to help keep you motivated.
Set a small reward for yourself – after these five calls I will go get a cappuccino. Or find motivation through music and exercise.
