Anatomy of the Worst Sales Call Ever

Guest post by: Dave Kurlan
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Salespeople Must Stop Snorkeling and Start Scuba Diving - By Dave Kurlan

The company rep showed up and looked at the plumbing. We had a very short discussion, mostly him telling me what he could do because he was an expert. After about 10 minutes with me, he left. Two days later I received an emailed proposal with several options and prices. And that was it. I never heard from him again.

It's easier to talk about some of the things he failed to do since he didn't do anything correctly. If we were to perform an analysis working backwards from the end of his (can't really call what he did a) sales process:

He didn't show that he was interested in getting my business.
He failed to call or follow up with me in any way.
There wasn't an intro paragraph to the email.
There wasn't a call to action.
He didn't qualify me.
He didn't learn about my time line.
He never talked with me about money.
He never asked what I wanted.
He didn't uncover any compelling reasons why I would buy.
He didn't appear to care.
He didn't attempt to develop a relationship.

When we first begin to work with new clients, we see a lot of salespeople exhibiting these classic mistakes. They think they're selling but they're really just going through (a couple of) the motions of selling. They say that 50% of success is just showing up. He's showing up so he's probably getting some business because some of his competitors aren't even doing that much. What if we were to quantify this? Let's pretend that he closes something close to what many companies achieve when they have salespeople like this - 10%. And let's suppose that since they deal mostly in commercial solutions, their average deal is closer to $100k, not the $10K (could that be why he didn't follow up?) he was looking for from me. He could be selling $1.2 M a year and the company could actually be happy with his performance. On the other hand, his competitors might be getting the other $10M+ and the company hasn't figured that out yet.

The real question from the scenario above is, how can this salesperson be that awful and who is responsible?

Him for not developing his own selling skills?
His sales manager for not recognizing his level of incompetence?
The hiring manager for selecting a D player?
The company for not providing training and development?
The company for not having more of a sales culture?
His sales manager for not providing coaching?
The company for not having a structured sales process?

What might we have learned about him if we had assessed him using Objective Management Group's Assessments?

Best and Worst

Fast ways to Increase sales and thus Profits

Sales Training Techniques that Work!

The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited - Book review

The Glass Ceiling Effect In Selling

Lesson #4: Never Underestimate the Power of Research

The bad table

Have You Had it With Distractions?

Setting Call Objectives

Lessons from Worst Bosses

The Anatomy of Buzz

My Top 14 Articles on More Effective Sales Cold Calling

Nothing Has Changed With These Adverts!

Nervous Knots

Why Follow a Sales Process?

Three Points of Need or Buyer Pain

Persuasion at All Levels

Careful Consideration and Analysis

Seven Habits of Highly Defective Sales Managers

Kids Build Websites Don't They?

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Salespeople Must Stop Snorkeling and Start Scuba Diving - By Dave Kurlan

About the Author: Dave Kurlan

RSS for Dave's articles - Visit Dave's website
Dave Kurlan is a best-selling author, top-rated speaker and thought leader on sales development. He is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling (Dan Seidman), Stepping Stones (Deepak Chopra and Brian Tracey) and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2 (David Riklan).
Click here to visit Dave's website.

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