The Top 6 Enemies of Your Sales Success
Think your competitors are your worst enemies? Think again. Your worst enemies -- the people most likely to keep you from making a sale -- work right inside your own firm!
This post reveals these hidden enemies of your sales success and how to cope with them. Click on the link below to begin reveal their true identities... if you dare!
WARNING: The final enemy (#1) is by far the most dangerous!
RELATED POSTS: NOTE: I've posted some of this content a couple of years ago, but that post got messed up in last year's BNET redesign. However, I think it's useful content, so I've added some material to make the current post.
SALES ENEMY #6: THE CHERRY-PICKER
- Typical Job Titles: Sales Rep, Sales Associate, Sales Agent, etc.
Distinguishing Characteristic: She always makes her numbers, even though she never seems to be working very hard.- Why She's Your Enemy: She is determined to build her sales career at your expense.
- How She Screws You Up: She claims all the easily-closed customer accounts and leaves the difficult accounts (i.e. the ones that will take time and effort to close) for the rest of the team.
- How To Cope With Her: Get a commitment from your manager to rotate who gets first crack at incoming sales leads.
- Warning: If your manager is doling out the leads and she keeps getting the easy ones, it's highly probable that some form of favoritism is going on, in which case, you have two choice: leave or live with it.
SALES ENEMY #5: THE BRAINIAC
- Typical Job Titles: Chief Technical Officer, Head Engineer, Chief Programmer, etc.
Distinguishing Characteristic: He's so proud of his technical achievement that he can't imagine that a customer might not be automatically impressed.- Why He's Your Enemy: He thinks that products sell themselves and therefore sales pros are parasites.
- How He Screws You Up: When he meets customers, he does a memory dump of the internal product workings, and then treats them like idiots if they don't understand what he's talking about.
- How To Cope With Him: Keep him away from your customers!! If you can't avoid such contact, prep up your customers ahead of time so that they don't take him too seriously.
- Warning: Will badmouth you mercilessly if you dare to question his technical opinions
SALES ENEMY #4: THE BEANCOUNTER
- Typical Job Titles: Chief Financial Officer, Chief Efficiency Officer, Head Accountant, etc.
Distinguishing Characteristic: Obsessive concern for saving money no matter how much it costs to do so.- Why She's Your Enemy: She views sales is an expense rather than the core of the business.
- How She Screws You Up: She devises rules and regulations that make it nearly impossible to sell. Example: cutting travel budgets for reps covering the entire Eastern seaboard.
- How To Cope With Her: Calmly point out the revenue and profit impact of the "cost savings." Be sure to have a spreadsheet to prove your point.
- Warning: If you get frustrated, you'll only encourage her. On some leve, she feels that if she's not making everyone else a little miserable, she's not doing her job.
SALES ENEMY #3: THE MAD MAN
- Typical Job Titles: Chief Marketing Officer, Vice President of Marketing, Marketing Manager, etc.
Distinguishing Characteristic: He thinks that marketing "drives" sales or that sales is just the operative arm of a marketing campaign.- Why He's Your Enemy: He adds to the cost of sales, but adds nothing of value to the sales process.
- How He Screws You Up: He spends big money on product videos and brochures full of biz-blab that makes customers roll their eyes.
- How To Cope With Him: Refuse to let him take credit for any sale where he did not generate the sales lead.
- Warning: He may very well have your clueless top management bamboozled into thinking that he's actually useful.
SALES ENEMY #2: THE DICTATOR
- Typical Job Titles: Sales Manager, Chief Sales Officer, Vice President of Sales, etc.
Distinguishing Characteristic: He thinks that managing a sales team means controlling everything that they say and do, and that screaming for half an hour is "coaching."- Why He's Your Enemy: He creates a negative environment that makes it horribly difficult to sell.
- How He Screws You Up: He goes on your sales calls, screws up your deals, and then blames you for the bad results.
- How To Cope With Him: Stay away from the office as much as possible and keep him in the dark about the sales in your pipeline.
- Warning: He may install a CRM system so he can check up on your daily activity.
SALES ENEMY #1: YOU
- Typical Job Titles: Uh... that would be YOUR job title.
Distinguishing Characteristic: You haven't taken the time and trouble fully develop your sales skills, attitude, business acumen, etc.- Why You're Your Own Worst Enemy: Your sales success is up to you, regardless of what problems or enemies you face on a day-to-day basis.
- How You Screw Yourself: Endless ways. You talk to customers more than you listen, you fail to prepare for customer meetings, you don't follow-through on commitments, etc., etc., etc.
- How To Cope With Your Limitations: Overcome them! Decide, right here and now, that you won't be satisfied with ANYTHING less than the absolute BEST that you can be. Make a commitment and then take action. You know what to do!
- Warning: If you actually make that commitment and take action, none of the other five enemies can possibly prevent you from becoming successful in Sales!