Four Mistakes Business Owners Make in Sales with Donald Kelly #118

In this episode we meet Donald Kelly host of the Sales Evangelist podcast. Donald helps business owners increase their sales skills and performance through coaching, sales training and speaking. Today he shares the 4 mistakes business owners make when hiring and managing sales professionals.

Sales Mistakes

Not hiring the right people.
Not having a formal sales process in place.
Not knowing who to go after.
Not having a message that is clear

Business owners think outgoing people are great for sales. They recruit and hire on personality vs a skill set that moves individuals to take action. This is a big mistake.

Reference Daniel Pink to Sell is Human

The ambivert is the ideal seller. Not the uber suave person but someone who has a skill set and desire to makes sales and a reasonable ability to communicate. Owners need to look for this: sales skills, desire and ability to connect.

Create a Formal Sales Process

Too few businesses have a sales structure. They think, sales people just need to go out and get deals. Without a formal sales process you cannot create a repeatable success. Sales is too often purely dependent on personality. If a salesperson leaves, so does their expertise, it’s not part of the company core competency.

Businesses too often don’t have a clear view of their ideal customer. As salespeople are hired, without clear guidance, they reinvent the wheel of who to sell and how best to pursue sales. Invariably they fail to find success and quit. You should know your ideal client and provide direction.

Business owners don’t like to do the hard work of sales. They think it’s an art and not science. Truly effective sellers are scientists.

Also, business owners fail to understand the message they are giving the market. Features, benefits, who is the best fit, this message is often skipped or murky. Selling is inefficient and unproductive.

Take Action

Advice: Figure out your ideal customer, three of their main challenges, and create a process to get that message to them. Document all this and create an effective process for new salespeople. Create metrics (KPIs) that salespeople can focus for success.