Episode #56: Stupid Mistakes Which Stop Sales

What we say and how we say it matters. It matters in life, in families and in business- especially in sales. Sale’s talk is very semantics driven.

Japan presents a challenge with developing salespeople. Invariably, they are the undereducated graduates of OJT or On-the-Job Training. If your boss is a great salesperson and a great coach, then well done you. In Japan, that combination is a rare bird.

Attempts by foreign corporates to rectify this OJT problem for developing salespeople are often laughable. Bosses who don’t speak Japanese or don’t have a sales background or even worse lack both, send in the English speaking instructors from the corporate APAC hub, to dole out the sales medicine.

Sales training for salespeople must be based on the reality of selling to clients in the client’s native language. You can explain the theory perhaps in English, but where is the coaching of the role play, the examples, the finer points of nuance?

There are more than enough of other sales fails anyway. The first big fail is lack of preparation and anticipation of the issues facing the client. Because of this the language being used by the sales person is vague and often meandering. Salespeople should complete a mini-SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis on the industry and the company, to flag potential problems requiring solutions and direct the discussion to the elements of the greatest interest to the buyer.

Blocker words are another killer of sales success. This is directly related to a lack of discipline on the part of the salesperson. What are these notorious blocker words – some common ones include: “sort of”, “a few”, “kinda”, “sometimes”, “more or less”, “about”, “some”.

Words like “price”, “cost”, “contract” are also poor selections. These words create an image of money going out like a flood from the client, but no value coming back in. We should only be speaking of “value” and “investment” instead.

Salespeople often talk too much. They love people and they love to chat. Too many words begin to pop up into the conversation, which add no value to the sales process.

Getting people to hand over their hard earned cash is hard enough and using poor communication skills makes it even harder. We need to train people properly and monitor their sales conversations to make sure they are achieving the maximum success possible.

Action Steps

1. Train your salespeople in the language of the client
2. Don’t allow laxity of word usage because semantics matter in sales
3. Be super concise and clear in your verbal sales communication
4. Bring evidence to back up your big words and glowing pronouncements
5. Explain the value of your solution at length first, rather than diving into the nitty gritty of the detail
6. Bring insights to the buyer, based on your analysis of their industry and your experiences with other similar clients