Sales Business – Top 4 Selling Mistakes to Avoid

Just like any business, the sales business needs to adapt to the new social and economic environment.

As customers become more difficult to influence, you have to come up with more effective sales techniques. As people start having less spare time, you have to be quicker to close sales.

The new times call for new and more influential methods for selling, such as NLP and covert hypnosis. They are more flexible to tailor to the individual prospect as well as more effective, as they are used to influence people psychologically and subconsciously.

Even if you use these methods, you are not safe from making sales business mistakes. That is why you should identify them and avoid them. This is what I will show you here, presenting some of the most serious mistakes a salesperson can make.

Building Rapport Using Technical Methods

You know that you have to tell a joke to “break the ice” between you and the prospect customer. This is an old and silly trick that will not work great today because it is pointless and time consuming. Furthermore, the joke may offend the prospect.

One effective way to build rapport is to use mirror imaging, a popular technique in NLP and covert hypnosis. Study the gestures, facial expressions and tone of voice of the prospect and do adopt them yourself.

You can readily use cross mirror imaging as well. For instance, if the prospect is touching his chin with his right hand, you can readily touch your chin with your left hand.

It is best to use the same language as the prospect for building rapport. For instance, business people use different jargon words and so do teenagers. Try to capture the jargon and reciprocate. This will help you immensely in your sales business.

Selling the Product Instead of Selling to the Prospect Customer

This is probably the worst mistake anyone in the sales business can make. You have to forget the phrase, “The product is selling itself”, for good.

It is all about the prospect, his needs and requirements. Your primary task in the sales process is to identify these factors and relate them to your product. You have to focus on the benefits the features will bring to the customer rather than on the features alone.

It is equally important to trigger positive emotions in the prospect and to make him associate these with the product. This is done with the use of NLP and covert hypnosis anchors. Flattering the person is also a good idea.

Asking Uncomfortable Questions that Give You No Valuable Selling Information

The question, “What do you need”, is impersonal and will not give you the amount of sales information you need. You have to use more subtle and psychologically influencing questions in your sales business.

Instead of this impersonal and formal question, you can readily ask, “What will help you get the desired outcome” or “How do you see the solution for your problem?”

Similarly, you are not a maintenance person or a health care professional in order to ask “What seems to be the problem?” You have to find a more influential question that will make the prospect feel comfortable and relaxed enough to share with you.

For example, you can ask, “What (in your business or fashion style) could be better?”

Using Words that Put Prospects off Buying

This is another one of the most serious mistakes in the sales business. The wrong words create wrong images in the prospect’s mind. In turn, these images put him off buying.

That is why you should always choose your words carefully. This is essential, when you use both NLP and covert hypnosis in your sales business.

One of the worst words to use is “cheap”. This word means “low price” as well as “low quality”. You can replace it with a range of more suitable words, such as “cost-saving”, “economic”, “cost-efficient” and even “practical”.

Another word that may produce the wrong impression is “buy”. Most people associate it with paying at the till. A superb word to use instead of this one is “own”.

You have just learned more about some of the most serious mistakes you can make in the sales business and how to avoid them. Use this knowledge to boost your sales and keep learning to become even more successful.