Here are five classic sales weaknesses to be on the lookout for, says Anderson, who is president of the Selling Skills Institute, and developer of the proprietary Shift Thinking Selling Methodology.
Weakness #1—Unsupportive Buying Habits
People tend to have buy cycles, and those of your candidates are an important indicator. People with short buy cycles make quick decisions, whereas people with long buy cycles take a long time to make decisions. Anderson has seen that salespeople with personal long buy cycles tend to create a long sales cycle with their prospects.
On the other hand, people with short buy cycle tend to want an instantaneous decision from prospects, and that may be too aggressive.
Weakness #2—Uncomfortable Talking About Money
There are many salespeople who are uncomfortable about money. They think:
- It’s not polite to talk about money
- It’s not polite to ask whether the customer has a budget
If salespeople are not comfortable talking about money, they won’t be successful, says Anderson. And along with that, your salespeople have to believe in your pricing structure and thus in the value of your product or service, he says.
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Weakness #3—Need for Approval
Everyone wants to be liked, but some people NEED to be liked, says Anderson. Those people often act in a subservient way. Unfortunately, that often means letting customers take advantage of them. How does that play out?
- They offer big (and unprofitable) discounts.
- They won’t follow up.
- They won’t be “professionally persistent” in their effort to create relationships and partnerships.
- They will write proposal after proposal but won’t close any sales.
In effect, says Anderson, you’re providing customers with free and unpaid consultants.
Weakness #4—Weak Belief Collection
Individuals with low self-confidence or low self-esteem have difficulty being good salespeople, says Anderson.
When potential customers and clients buy our convictions and our beliefs, often that’s the difference maker in whether there is a sale or not. If your salespeople have low self-esteem, it’s almost impossible to demonstrate that level of conviction and belief and confidence that people need to see as they make their buy decision.
If we can’t sell ourselves, we can’t sell our customers, says Anderson.
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Weakness #5—Emotional Involvement
People with too high emotional involvement have a difficult time separating their identities from their roles, says Anderson.
This becomes a problem when they have to deal with rejection, he says. We know we shouldn’t take things personally, but a lot of salespeople do take rejection personally. One result is that they don’t set enough new qualified appointments because they are struggling with rejection.
Let’s face it, says Anderson, prospecting for business is challenging. Lots of the people we call on say No, we’re not interested. Salespeople need to be able to handle that rejection; the rejection will kill them if they can’t separate it out.
As you look at your prospects and your current team, and as you try to align them with your mission and brand, ask yourself—do they have classic weaknesses (they’ll never get in alignment) or does the team have the courage conviction and belief to go out and sell?
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Very helpful–especially those of us involved in hiring for sales positions without actually having done sales ourselves.