Why isn’t our sales increasing?

For starters, sales people send emails that fall into one of three categories: a) poorly written, b) starting with some lie or c) have nothing to do with my business model.

An examination

Let’s look at each, and move on to other problems that I find with many sales people today.

Poorly written

If I can’t figure out what your pitching, why would I respond?  If you have glaring grammatical errors or spelling errors, what does that say to me, your prospective customer? You’ll notice this blog entry is rather short, and the sentences for the most part staccato; because I don’t have time to read a thesis.

Solution

Improve your business/sales pitch writing

Starting with a lie

Why would you start a relationship off lying to your customer?  We didn’t meet, you didn’t try to call me.  Some friend (unnamed) didn’t suggest you contact me.  You didn’t read my resume or profile or whatever.  If you did, then the email wouldn’t be a form letter, it would be more personalized than sticking my name and/or company in a placeholder.

I, nor anyone else is going to do business with you, when you boldly lie.

Solution

This is a no brainer, don’t lie in your sales pitches.

Nothing to do with my business model

I provide consulting services, why are you trying to sell me shipping equipment or shelving units for a warehouse?  Why are you wasting my time?  Not only don’t you have a chance in hell of making a sale (unless you happen to pick a day when a client asks me about what you sell; and then you should have targeted the client) you’ve put a bad taste in my mouth about your company and brand.

Solution

Target your emails better.  Research who you are sending these spammy emails too, before hitting send.

Training issues

I find (spammy email or not) many young salespeople don’t know enough about [fill in the blank] to properly sell, so they go back to their limited training.

Example:

I got off a sales/technical sales video call yesterday. The company  had the sales person and their technical person on the call, since I asked some technical questions via email.  Fair enough and makes sense.

The technical gal provided most of the info I need, and offered any other assistance should I require it.   However the sales guy kept wanting to go over the areas I had covered, where I said I was satisfied and wasn’t an issue. It would seem he had nothing to add, so he went back to his script.  In this case, it wasn’t a sales killer, but if he were there alone and I hadn’t been road testing the software, then it possibly could have been.

Solution

Train up the salespeople.  Give them more technical expertise.  Give them more training on how the product is currently used and more importantly how it could be used. The more “worldly” the sales person is, the better they can understand how to sell the service or product to the potential customer.