Why this Common Sales Mistake is Costing You More Sales than You Realize

The exact language you’re taught to use puts pressure on your prospect. This pressure increases your prospect’s anxiety, and reduces their ability to make a decision. A decision is the exact thing you need to increase your sales success.

You’re so used to hearing and using this type of language yourself you don’t even realize you’re applying pressure. You might notice how when you say certain things the prospect pauses and looks taken aback. That’s because you’re increasing that prospect’s level of anxiety at that moment.

There are two things happening throughout your sales conversation from the prospect’s perspective. The conversation is creating internal friction within the prospect, and external pressure. You can’t eliminate the internal friction it’s actually a necessary part of the prospect’s thought process.

You can control and want to eliminate the external pressure you create. This external pressure is the outcome of both the substance and perception of this shared sales conversation. This external pressure results in anxiety that can paralyze the prospect and prevent them from being able to make ANY decision.

Sources of anxiety for your prospect include: concerns over quality, concerns about reliability, concerns related to price, and the natural anxiety you trigger when you try to pressure the prospect into making a decision in your favor. Most people naturally struggle with internal friction over making a decision. They need your help.

Your job is to help the prospect make the best decision for them. You must accomplish this without applying the usual sales pressure tactics. Asking if they prefer A or B is pressuring the prospect to make a decision by making a choice. Asking if they’d like to start on Tuesday at 10:00 is also a pressure question.

Any question that leads the prospect to make a direct decision applies pressure to the prospect. This pressure decreases their ability to make a decision. The inability to make a decision decreases the likelihood of you making a sale. The prospect feels like they’re being pinned down to make a decision they aren’t ready to make.

You can remove this pressure by making a few simple changes in the way you ask the questions you need to ask to help them make a decision. Instead of asking if they prefer A or B you might ask, “If you were to decide on something like A how would you envision that impacting you?” Now the prospect is free to think out loud in a non-risk way because they can speak both for and against choice A.

You then might ask, “How does B compare with what you’ve just said about A?” Again the prospect is in control to explore choice B without getting pressure from you over either choice.

The more pressure you remove the less internal friction the prospect has thinking through their options and making a choice. Less internal friction also means both you and the prospect win. You either mutually discover there’s a reason to do business together, or there isn’t. Either way you’re more productive and increase sales.

Why this Common Sales Mistake is Costing You More Sales than You Realize - To learn more about this author, visit Cheryl A. Clausen's Website.

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