How to stop Killing Sales Deals You Should Have Won
By Mark Allen Roberts
Many sales teams are adapting to the Covid-19 challenge. For some outside salespeople they are making virtual sales calls for the first time. Some teams are training their sales teams how to build virtual relationships and conduct virtual sales professionally, but sadly many are not. In addition to adjusting to working from home and its challenges, your sales team must have the right sales mindset to deliver the maximum results. The new book: Stop Killing Deals by George Bronten will help you quickly unmask deadly sales deal assumptions your sales team may have and help you correct them strategically. You will get to the root of your sales teams’ assumptions, reframe those assumptions and then gain a competitive advantage by viewing sales through the lens of human interaction.
I have to admit the current sales environment is the most challenging I have seen over the past 36 years. What I find to be one of the biggest challenges as I work with sales leaders and assess their sales teams is the teams’ sales mindset. Sales teams today are often not performing due to limiting beliefs and assumptions that are holding them back from helping their customers in their greatest time of need. These limiting beliefs are resulting in salespeople killing deals they should have won, and not even in conversations on sales opportunities they could have won.
The author shared a great quote:
“ Assumptions are your window to the world. You need to scrub them every once in a while or the light won’t come in.”
- Jsaac Asimov
So what are some assumptions and limiting beliefs that are killing sales deals for your team today?
- I’m not good at cold calls
- I hate cold calls
- Cold calls do not work
- No one wants to speak with salespeople today
- No one has budget
- Everyone’s business is hurting today
- I might loose my job, so I better start looking
What is a belief?
A belief is a thought you repeat over and over again. Notice I did not say a true thought. The way our brains work is they log every thought without measuring if it’s true.
Social science says our thoughts, feelings, memories, and processes that take place below the level of consciousness drive most of our behavior.
We are unaware of what’s happening in our unconscious mind where we harbor self-limiting beliefs. If that were not enough the author also shares how cultures and organizations also have limiting beliefs.
What I found fascinating in Stop Killing Deals is the discussion on organizational limiting beliefs I have observed that negatively impact sales effectiveness like…
- Salespeople are born not made
- Salespeople are disciplined
- Buyers and sellers are logical
The author does an excellent job of unpacking each of the above limiting organizational beliefs.
For example: How do you know if your organization believes salespeople are born and not trained?
- Unreliable business results
- Slow or non existent sales growth
- EBIT lower than your competitors
- High sales turnover
- High customer defections
- Missed sales forecasts
- Unhappy stakeholders
- Fast sales leader turnover
The author also shares how to determine if your sales organization is disciplined and why most buyers and salespeople are not logical.
Stop Killing Deals also helps us understand the 5 most common things that drive decision making that every sales leader must understand.
Do your salespeople have limiting beliefs that are kills deals?
The author provides numerous excellent online tools to help you and your team improve.
I cannot think of a sales team I have served over the years who would not value the insights and tools of this book to help improve their sales teams’ effectiveness.
Are your salespeople able to work remotely today? (are you sure? The data I am seeing is more than 30% of salespeople cannot work remotely without some skills training)
Do they have the discipline to work remotely?
What limiting beliefs does your sales team have today?
I highly recommend Stop Killing Deals for every sales organization and regional teams that want to become market leaders in sales effectiveness skills.
If you would like to identify limiting beliefs your salespeople have today and create a plan to change them so your salespeople stop killing deals give me a call.
