Whether your sales reps are out in the field or in the office making calls, the last thing you want are customers who regret engaging with your sales team. Ignoring your phone calls or having a bad feeling about your company unfortunately are side effects of off-putting sales teams. Scaring away customers is the quickest way to ruin your business and demoralize your sales team.
How can you recognize if your sales team is scaring away potential customers? Read on to find out.
Five Ways Your Sales Team Might Be Scaring Away Customers
1. Refusing to Take “No” for an Answer
Some salespeople will say this means they are driven. But we can guarantee all customers will say it means the sales person is annoying (or worse, disturbing). Part of being a great salesperson is understanding how people work and picking up on social cues. If a customer says no, take it gracefully and recognize that the ball is now in their court to come back if they want to establish a relationship. Otherwise, you’re scaring away customers for good.
2. Overly Aggressive in the Early Stages
Again, there’s a fine line between being a go-getter and being off-putting – which taken to the nth degree is scaring away customers. Initially, they’ll stick it politely for a while, but ultimately you’ll be scaring them away. S0 – save your strong sales pitch for when a relationship has been established. Instead, channel that energy into getting to know your customer. Remember, around 84% of buyers can be repelled by aggressive tactics.
3. Coming Over as Fake
This is one of the worst offenses and should come as no surprise, as it can also be traced back to failing to establish a solid relationship.
Don’t try to speed up the process of forming client relationships, otherwise you’ll likely find yourself without many clients. When it comes to talking with prospects, it’s always best to be true to yourself. Buyers can instinctively detect “fake” and this destroys trust in your brand. And that’s a surefire way of scaring away customers.
4. Scare Tactics
This method rarely works and most times it comes off as manipulative and negative. If you’re trying to get a prospect to close a deal, putting pressure on them or highlighting all of their negative points will just leave a bad taste in their mouth.
Instead, you want your sales team to focus on explaining how your business can offer a great solution to your client’s problem. This is, after all, the only reason they agreed to a meeting!
5. Talking Over Customers
We get it, you want to demonstrate your expertise in the area and make the client feel comfortable, but you can do that without dominating every conversation.
Being a good listener is a vital quality in this career, and often times the more you listen, the more you’ll learn. When you can get prospective clients talking, you can really understand their needs and offer up the best solutions. And they’ll feel heard. So, they’ll more likely believe you can solve their pain point.
We Can Help Get Your Team on the Right Track
Have you recognized any of these issues with your sales team? It might be time to take a hard look at what’s going on.
Or do you simply want to do some preventative work? If you turn a blind eye to these issues, we can promise your business will suffer.
Let our team of experts at 360 Consulting help you find the right people for your team and get your company reaching record breaking sales. Schedule a free consultation and let’s talk about how we can take your numbers to the next level.