The #1 Sales mistake people make - and how to avoid it!

0:16 Welcomed to the Impact Sales Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Beck, and we have a great episode in store for you today. You know, I often get asked by people what are the biggest challenges or mistakes that people make in selling? So today today we're going to unpack the number one mistake that people make when selling professionally. It doesn't matter whether you are a coach, a consultant, an entrepreneur, or somebody selling for somebody else's company or business. Today we're going to talk all about the number one mistake that holds people back from attaining sales success. And not only were we going to talk about the mistake, but we're going to explain how you can avoid it so it doesn't happen to you. I promise you, no matter who you are, no matter what your background is, this particular issue has impacted you, and we're going to make sure at the end of this episode that you feel fully equipped to make sure that it doesn't hold you back again.

1:11 So today we're going to dive in and talk all about the number one mistake that sales professionals make and more importantly, how you can avoid it. This is Joe Beck. Don't go anywhere. We'll be back in just a moment. Hi, this is Joe Beck with the Sales Activist. Are you a coach, consultant or entrepreneur who's struggling to reach the sales adjectives you have for yourself and your business? Well, if you are, I'd like to help. How would you like to be able to triple your sales results in six months or less, all without spending a single penny on additional marketing or advertising. Well you can do just that and more with the ISM System. After thirty four plus years of sales success in large companies, small companies, and working with entrepreneurs, I created a proprietary sales system that can create massive sales momentum in your business. To get the details, just text the words sales to the number four oh nine five oh nine seven three five five.

2:07 That's sales to four oh nine five oh nine seven three five five. We can grab some time on my calendar. We can talk one on one about the ISM system and exactly what it can do to help you generate massive sales momentum media business. This as Joe Beeck with the Sales Activist. You don't have to settle for average sales results. I've been really excited about this episode for quite some time. I get asked a lot of questions about sales week in and week out. People ask me questions particularly about sales, professional selling, selling problems, you know, just anything in the in the general arena of sales, and this one particular question always seems to come up.

2:51 And ironically, it's also one of the biggest challenges, if not the biggest mistake that people make. And this is one of the things that I think people kind of don't think about too much because they get so caught up in so many other areas of selling. But there's actually one general, specific thing mistake that everybody universally makes. And it doesn't matter whether you are a coach, a consultant, an entrepreneur, whether you sell for somebody else's business, doesn't matter about what you're selling, doesn't matter what industry you're in. It just doesn't matter. This is a universal issue and it's something that every single person out there has done at some point or another. Okay, you know, and it comes back to just understanding. You know, there are certain things that work really, really well when selling, and there are other things that don't work really well, and all of that takes a back seat to this one particular issue, and it's because it is the starting point or ending point to sometimes your sales interaction. It is literally the beginning or the end, meaning you could be right at the beginning and it could be going really really well, or you could crash and burn because you're starting off on the completely wrong foot. And that particular topic, the number one mistake that people make is what I call selling to suspects, selling to people that aren't your ideal prospect or your ideal target audience. Some people have called

4:25 it selling to people that just aren't ever going to buy or aren't interested in what you do. But at the end of the day, it comes down to one thing. It's selling to a suspect, somebody who is not really a legitimate prospect for what it is that you do or offer. And it's a huge mistake that anybody can make. Everybody makes it at some point or another. You know, we're all human beings. We're all excited, we're all anxious, we're all thrilled to be engaging somebody sometimes in a sales interaction, and we are hopeful. Sometimes we hope ourselves into thinking somebody is a legitimate prospect, but they really aren't. Many times they're just what we call suspects. Now, it doesn't matter how you define it. I define suspect as somebody who you know, we might know a little bit of information about, but we don't have enough to really qualify them as a legitimate prospect. And I just believe, and it's part of my coaching methodology, my training methodology, that the number one thing you have to do is to avoid selling to suspects. Stop trying to sell something to somebody who isn't right for what it is that you do, doesn't want, desire or need what you do, isn't financially able to handle what it is that you do.

5:37 Just stop doing it. Start focusing your time, your energy, your attention, your passion on talking to people that really are right for what it is that you do. And this is such a pervasive issue that it impacts individuals dramatically, it impacts whole organizations sometimes. You know, I've had the great fortune to work with a lot of different companies, and if I was to sit back and I was to look at analyze their sales pipelines, many times those pipelines would be filled with just a lot of information, a lot of data but nothing of significant relevance, or not enough of significant relevance, meaning a lot of suspect data but not enough prospect data. And the reason why that's important to understand is because many times people will go out there chasing the wrong type people, the wrong prospects, the wrong not even prospects at that point, suspects, and they spend a lot of time and energy doing it.

6:36 It creates frustration, it creates stress, It puts an enormous amount of pressure on everybody involved in the process, the sales professional themselves, the person on the other side of the table, because if they're not really right for what it is that you do, their time's being spent. If you're part of a larger organization, it could be something that's impacting multiple people, it could impact the general momentum of the business. So this is really a significant problem. So today we want to attack this problem in a way that makes it very, very straightforward. Now, I don't want to get caught up in the definition of the words. I don't want to get hung up on whether you call something a suspect, a prospect, whatever it is. So I'm going to give you my definition, and then we're going to kind of work from there, and you could take it for what it is and use it. So I define a suspect somebody who is a potential prospect as somebody that we have some bit of information about.

7:32 Maybe we know a name, a company name, a website, an email, maybe we have a sense of they're in the industry that we target or work with. Generally, we have some basic, minimal information. That's what I call a suspect. Now that suspect may or may not be your ideal prospect, but we don't know enough yet to know if they are. We either haven't qualified them yet or we haven't spent enough time with them to even know if they have the ability or the qualification to be able to work with us, you know. And that could take the shape of a lot of different things. So today, in this episode, we're going to drill down on specifically what those things are, and we're going to talk, you know, a lot about the importance of only selling to people that make up the prospect pool and not the suspect pool. Now I'm not saying we ignore the suspects. We continue to work with them, and cultivate them, get to know them better, get more information about who they are, what they do, what they're about, what they're trying to accomplish. We try to qualify them as a prospect, and that's going to be what we're going to do, but we don't in any way try to sell those people. Now, this is a really important point to understand. Your likelihood for success goes down dramatically when you're selling to somebody who is only a suspect. You know, that kind of makes a lot of sense. But as human beings, we all have

9:04 our own little quirks and feelings about things. But one of the things that's really a challenge in regards to selling is people's emotional state, their motivation, their confidence, their mindset plays a role in everything, and when things aren't going well, people start to wish themselves into things that just aren't there. They look at a suspect and some basic information and they want to be confident and positive and upbeat about what's going on, and they almost talk themselves into believing that that person is a legitimate prospect, is somebody who they could work with. Now, maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. We don't know. Yet. But it's very common for people to do that, and it doesn't matter whether you are working for yourself, whether you're working part of an organization. People will themselves into things all the time for a variety of different reasons. Maybe you just need to do it. It's something that deep down you feel you need to do it. Maybe you feel you need to do it because you're part of a sales organization and you feel pressure. You're looking around at the other people and you see people getting things done and you're kind of falling behind, and maybe that's part of your motivation. But like the old saying, goes, hope is not a strategy. You can hope all day long that these suspects are going to be able, willing, and going to work with you, but that doesn't make it so.

10:24 So as you look at this challenge, I want you to recognize that everybody, not a single human being ever that's ever sold anything, has not been susceptible to this particular thing. Everybody that's ever been out there, at some point has looked at somebody who maybe or maybe wasn't really qualified and convinced themselves that they could be a client and tried to sell them that's just normal, right. The fact is, though, it's really really important that as sales professionals, no matter what you're selling, no matter what you're offering, that you don't fall victim to that yourself, that you focus your time and energy where it's best served, and that is selling to people that really are interested in what it is that you do or are capable of buying what it is that you offer. So the first rule is recognizing when you don't know enough to actually be able to say that somebody is a legitimate prospect.

11:15 Now I use the definition of suspect and prospect if if they aren't a qualified prospect, which we'll get to in a minute. If they aren't a qualified prospect, well, the only other category for them is suspect. And I use that word for a variety of reasons. I use that word because I think it defines the potential of that person. I mean, it could it suspect. We just don't know yet, right, But it's a nice basic definition for we have some information, but we don't have enough yet. And this is an area that I think is really important to everybody who's selling professionally or selling for their own business to really master day in and day out, I have interactions with people phone calls, emails, text messages where they struggle with particular sales interactions. They aren't generating momentum or enough success inside their business. And one of the number one things that always is, you know, the issue that surrounds that, or one of the things that really comes from that is because they're talking to the wrong people, or they're selling to people that aren't really qualified.

12:20 So we want to kind of define what that looks like, and most importantly, we want to set aside some basic ground woles for you. Now, obviously this is a podcast, we're sharing information. You could do whatever you want to do, but the fact is, your likelihood for success drops dramatically if you try selling to people that are just suspects. Maybe you'll have some luck. Maybe every once in a while you'll be able to win somebody over and close some business and work with them, but the likelihood of that business sticking with you long term is not great. And I'll tell you it's an uphill battle to win it in the first place. So let's talk about what the definitions are. Let's dig into what the definitions are, so you guys understand The difference between suspect and prospect.

13:03 A suspect is when we have some really good basic information about somebody a name, an email, a company name, industry. Maybe we have a little bit of data. We know kind of where they are, maybe we know they're looking at something, maybe we know their company is researching something, but we don't have a lot of detail about the who and the how and the why all that stuff. Yet we have some basic data, Well, that person is a suspect. Now, how they become a prospect, how they become somebody that we can legitimately call qualified, is by going through a simple checklist of different things that we need to verify that that person has. And we're going to go through those things today, and we want to make sure that you know you take some good notes to this. Go back and listen to this episode again.

13:50 I highly recommend if you haven't already subscribed to the podcast, catch each episode. There's there's a lot of great actionable content in each one of these episodes, but this is one you're going to want to go back to because I would tell you if there's one thing that I noticed, even with seasoned sales professionals, even with people who have sold for a long time or have attained some really really great success in selling. Every once in a while they slip up. Every once in a while they go back and they revert to something like this. They're calling on the wrong people. They're trying to close people that aren't really prospects. They're playing in the suspect pool. Now, there's nothing wrong with playing in the suspect pool, but the only thing that you should be doing in there is positioning and qualifying. You aren't there to sell, because that's not the best use of your time with those people.

14:40 You're there to get to know them better, to qualify them, to position things for the future. But trying to sell somebody with limited information is usually a very challenging thing. So what are these qualifications? What does it take to really call somebody a qualified prospect? Okay, now here's the list that I use, and everybody has their own take on these, and it might be something that some people may disagree with, may have a different few, maybe more, maybe less. But this is a short list of things that I believe that are critical to determine whether somebody is a prospect. It's six simple checklist items that you can use to verify that they're a legitimate prospect and that you can use to check your own sanity on it in the process. So here we go. Number one the top of the list. You need to identify who the decision maker is. Now that could be a single decision maker, that could be a multiple decision maker process where there's multiple people who weigh on it. But you need to number one, define who the decision maker is.

15:47 And ideally, not only who the decision maker is, but what their decision making process typically looks like. Now, this is one that upends a lot of people because they learn about the company, they learn about all there's great information, but then they don't get to the right decision maker. They're talking to somebody who can't make the decision, doesn't have the authority to make it, or isn't willing to make it and passes you on to somebody else. But ultimately, to really consider somebody qualified, you know, as far as somebody you're talking to, you better make sure you're talking to a decision maker, somebody who has the authority and the ability to actually make the decision, whether that's a single person or whether it's multiple people. And in an ideal world, you'd like to understand their decision making process, but in the very least, you need to know who they are, who the decision maker is on that account.

16:38 Here's one that I think is important, and this one always I scratch my head when I hear it happen, but it does. You need to make sure that for that decision maker, you have all the relevant contact data. You have all their information. You know their name, their phone number, their email, their social media handles, you know how to get a hold of these people. I will tell you there's nothing more fresh then talking to somebody who's working on what they define as a really great potential client and we start digging into the details on it, and they have a decision maker, but they don't have that person's email, they don't have that person's direct phone number. They have a website, but they don't know exactly how to get a hold of this person. Okay, you know, without question, you need to have access. If you have no access, they aren't qualified. If you don't have a phone number, an email, social media, if you don't know how to get to them, you certainly can't call them qualified.

17:34 If you don't have a line of dialogue or communication open with them, and a way to get to them. They aren't qualified yet, okay, and I want you to make sure that you underline that that's a big one. Here's one that may or may not trigger something in some people, but this is one that I think is really important. You need to make sure that you're offering whatever it is, no matter who you're offering it to, you need to make sure that you're offering is appropriate for that business and their needs. Now, that doesn't mean that you can't sell something to somebody that it's not their biggest priority or not something that's at the top of their list of urgent demands that they have or needs that they have for their business, but it still has to be something that's appropriate for their business. You can't call somebody a qualified prospect if you aren't selling something that's relevant or appropriate for their business or industry.

18:37 If you're showing them something or want to show them something that just isn't appropriate for their business or their needs, you are kidding yourself. If you're thinking that you have a likelihood for success, you just don't. So to call that person qualified, you know, And just to recap where we are, so far in the list. You need to have a decision maker identified or multiple decision makers identified. You need to have all the necessary contact information for that decision maker or decision makers, or at least a valid line of communication where you can get to each other and communicate. Okay. If you don't have that, you don't have a qualified prospect. And the third of the six that we have on this checklist is you're offering needs to be appropriate. It needs to be appropriate for the business, for their needs, their wants, their desires. It needs to align with what it is that they're looking for.

19:29 It needs to be appropriate. Now it doesn't mean that it has to do everything. It doesn't have to have all the bells and whistles, but it has to at least be appropriate for what they're looking for. Okay, So those are the first three. Now those are pretty straightforward, pretty simple. But now we're going to start getting into some things that are a little different. Okay. The next one, which I think is important that you identify, is you need to determine the financial ability of your suspect. At that point to be able to afford your product or service, they need to be capable of purchasing it. It can't just be willing what you're going to get into. Next, they need to be capable. If they aren't capable financially and you don't have the ability of showing them a path towards creating that capability, they really aren't qualified. They can't be considered a qualified prospect. You're kidding yourself if you're thinking that they're going to buy. If they have no budget, if they have no financial capability or access to the capital necessary to purchase or buy from you, they aren't qualified. Now, could they be close to being qualified if maybe they need to put together the money or find the money. Yeah, of course, But today, as we look at it, if they aren't financially capable, they aren't qualified. And trying to sell to somebody who has no capability of buying what you're selling and you have no other way of helping to bridge that gap is not going to get you where you want to go. Okay, So financial or capability is a big piece of this equation.

21:04 If they aren't financially capable, they really aren't qualified. This next one, and this is a big one because this is one that's very subjective, but it's really important that you drill down on this is you need to make sure that your suspect has either a significant desire or need for your offering. There needs to be true willingness to move forward with it. They need to desire it, want it, or need it. And if you don't have that, if they don't have a true desire or need for what it is that you're offering, excuse me, literally, they are not qualified. If you are showing them something and they don't need it, want it, or desire it in any way, they aren't qualified. And if if you consider the time and energy put forth in just getting to that point, the sooner you can learn about these things, that better off you are. You don't want to spend time and energy learning these things later. You want to learn them as soon as possible. But once you know them, you really can't call somebody a qualified prospect if they don't have the want, desire, or need for what it is that you do. And every day people try to sell something to somebody else without any confidence or certainty that that person once needs your desires what it is that they offer. And I will tell you it's very

22:34 challenging to be successful selling in that way. Selling in that model. Selling with that approach, your likelihood for success is extremely low when you approach it that way. If you flip that around the other way, if you're talking to somebody who has the desire, the want, the need for what it is that you do, and all these other things so far on this list have been checked off, well, that's a much higher likelihood for success. That's somebody who has a much higher likelihood to be able to work with you. But you've got to make sure you're doing that. Now. Those are the top five. The six to one. Number six on the list is one that sometimes people forget.

23:14 It's kind of forgotten. Often people find themselves many times being led around like a dog on a leash by this particular one topic and they don't address it, and it many times can hold them back from their success. And that's the issue of timing, the issue of a timeline. For somebody to legitimately be qualified as a prospects somebody who you can legitimately say I've got a fair opportunity of winning this business. You need to have a timeline associated to when they either want or need your product, or to when they're going to make their decision. There needs to be a timeline discussed or agreed upon. If you have no timeline, this is all conjecture and conversation.

24:02 If you have no specific timing in mind for when something will or won't happen, when a decision will or won't be made. If you have no timeline, you really don't have much to work with. And what I mentioned a minute ago about being led like a dog on a leash, it's so true that people get themselves into sales interactions where they're trying to work with somebody and the timing isn't figured out, and it's not figured out at any given thing, and it just kind of hangs there for people. They're not ready, they're not anxious, they don't really want and desire what you need. And even if they did, they don't have a timeline decided. It's not specific enough so for you to really dial in your sales success, for you to really avoid making the biggest mistake that most people make when it comes to selling.

24:47 Stop selling suspects, stop selling to people that don't meet all six of these criteria. And I'm just gonna review them again real quick. Number one, you have a decision maker, whether it's a individual, or whether it's multiple decision makers, you have that person or people identified. Number two, you have all the necessary contact information or a line of communication is open, you can get to them. You can't really call somebody qualified if you can't even get to them, you can't get them on the phone or an email. They're not qualified if you can't reach them. Number Three, you're offering needs to be appropriate for the business based upon what it is that you're offering them. It needs to align with what they're once needs and desires are.

25:32 If you offer something that just does not at all apply to what it is that's important to them or what their needs are, you can't really call it a legitimate qualified prospect for you. It's not likely that it will close. Number four. They need to have the financial ability or capability of buying what you're selling. And this is a big one. This is one that you really need to hold on to and remember to find out as soon as you can. If they are not financially able or capable of affording what it is that you do and have no access to the capability, whether it's through financing or some other resource, they really aren't qualified as a prospect. Now that might be a timing thing.

26:16 That might just be that they need time to put that together. But until they do, until they have it, until they're able to do that, until that capability is assured, they really aren't qualified. Now, I know some people may differ on that opinion, but I'm playing the odds. I'm saying straight up that if you're talking to somebody who doesn't have these things, your likelihood for success and selling them is very very low. And if you're talking to somebody who you can check the box on all six of these things, your likelihood for success is exponentially higher. And what I'm saying is you don't want to sell to that first group. You only want to sell to the second. Now, the remaining two topics the things that were on that list. The next is the desire, want or need for your offer, the willingness they have to have capability and willingness. They have to be capable of purchasing, and they have to be willing to purchase. And the willingness ties to a desire, a want, or a need that needs to be addressed. Many times people will call on and work with people that just aren't interested in what they do. They aren't willing. They're not going to be willing. They're never going to be willing. It doesn't align with who they are, what they need, what they want, and people will continue to try to sell to them even though it doesn't align with the prospect's needs. In that case, you can't even really call them a prospect.

27:37 So it's important that you recognize that the once needs and desires, the willingness of that person needs to be there for you to be able to qualify them. And finally, and I mentioned this a minute ago, and it's so so true. You need to have a defined timeline. There needs to be some timeline. Now, that timeline could be out of bit. It could be three months, six months, a year, upon what you sell and what the sales cycle is. What it can't ever be to be called qualified. It can't ever be indefinite. See, if you have somebody that you look at the timeline and it's indefinite. You don't know when they'll be ready, you don't know if they'll be ready, but you have no sense of the timeline.

28:22 They aren't qualified. Now if that same person checks off all the other boxes and they say, look, we're not going to be ready until at least six months, but in six months we will be that's somebody who's qualified. We at least have a timeline. We know it's six months, we know what we're dealing with. We can work with that. But what you can't work with is uncertainty. You can't work with not knowing a timeline and having it. If you don't have a timeline, you don't have a qualified prospect. So there they were the top six, the six checklist items that you need to have to qualify somebody to make sure you're not selling to a suspect. If you could check off, you can call them a prospect and you can definitely say that your sales success calling on them is going to be much much higher. There is a decision maker in place, You have all the necessary contact info, your offering is appropriate, You have financial ability and capability, and the want, need, desire for your offering.

29:17 The willingness is in place, and finally, you have a timeline. If you have all six of those, you have every single thing you need to qualify that prospect. Legitimately call them a prospect and sell to them. If you find yourself selling to people that don't check these six boxes, I promise you you're on an uphill road. It's going to be difficult. A lot of the work that I do with the Sales Activist is to help people make sure they move people from that suspect stage to the prospect stage, get them qualified, make sure we have everything that we need, and make sure that when we are selling it is to the right people, the people that are qualified, the people that really are a legitimate prospect for what it is that we do. Now, I hope this information has been beneficial for you all. If you're out there and you're selling and it seems like you're not gaining any traction and you are at all questioning the people that you're calling on, I encourage you to go back and re listen to this episode. Re listen to the six checklist items that I put in here related to qualifying somebody as a prospect. And if the people you're calling on don't check all six boxes, you need to make that change immediately and make sure you start calling on those people when they're really are qualified.

30:36 So I want to thank you all for taking the time to be with us today for the Impact Sales Podcast. We have a lot of great content coming your way. On future episodes. Make sure you like and subscribe all of our posts. Make sure you catch our podcast wherever you normally listen to your podcast. Don't meet miss any episodes. There's some great actionable content coming your way. This is Joe Beck with the Sales Activist. Sell better and impact the world. We'll talk to you soon. Hi, this is Joe Beck with a Sales Activist. Are you a coach, consultant, entrepreneur, or sales professional who's struggling to reach and attain your sales objectives? Does your sales calendar look like a barren wasteland with little to no activity and certainly not enough in your sales pipeline. If this sounds like you, I'd like to help. For well over thirty years and after tens of thousands of live sales interactions, I've developed a proprietary sales system, the ISM System, that can help you create massive sales momentum for yourself and your business. To get the details, we'll learn a bit more about the ISM system and exactly what it can do to help you generate significant success. Just text the word sales to the number four oh nine five oh nine seven three five five. That's four oh nine five oh nine seven three five five. Grab a time on my calendar and I'll be happy to talk with you all about it.

32:03 You don't have to settle for average sales results. I'll talk to you soon