Surprisingly, I see this more often than I would’ve imagined. Many people think they know sales, and even those that know they don’t know, pretend they know… isn’t that weird?

Its as if they don’t understand that sales is just as much about customer service as customer service itself. And if you can’t master the basics of sales, then you’ll damage your customer’s experience. In most cases, this damage is permanent, as in lost a potential sale permanent!

The other day I called up a company that had a pretty impressive client list and that’s done some excellent work, looking for a quote to possibly do some work for one of my consulting companies. I knew exactly what I needed and asked specifically for that.

The sales person decided to tell me about all the other things they could do (mistake #1 - never assume you are smarter than your prospective customer) and proceeded to try and upsell me (mistake #2 - never try to sell your customer something they don’t think they need).

I don’t think she even took the time to understand what I needed or explore my problem that I was looking to address (mistake #3 - never offer a solution to a problem that hasn’t been acknowledged). Sure, I might need the services she offered, but I need lots of other things.

The difference is… what am I interested in buying? Often, what I need, and what I want, can be pretty different. And that is the point. Very rarely will your customer know what they need… but they will often know what they want :-)

To turn a prospective customer in to an actual customer, focus on selling them what they want, not what they need. Then, once they’re a customer and you have a relationship with them, they might be more interested in listening to you tell them what they need.

So a few days pass and I get an email with a quote for 20k! Here I was thinking I needed this small thing for about 1k, and somehow this sales person thought it wise to push my budget twenty-fold. Imagine my surprise, and frustration! Generally you want to make the sale as simple as possible… be easy to do business with.

Needless to say, I’ve got a pretty bad taste in my mouth and probably won’t be doing business with them.