Sales is the motor that drives a business. Like the great Red Motley once stated, “Nothing happens until a sale is made.” Since businesses and customers currently are not eager to spend, it’s vital that sales professionals avoid the common mistakes (I will cover over the next few weeks) mentioned below.

1. Not Prospecting Consistently: to generate sustainable revenue growth, a sales professional must keep the sales pipeline primed with qualified prospects from techniques which include cold-calling and asking for referrals.

2. Mentioning Price Up Front: a sales professional needs to determine what product/service offering a potential customer needs and demonstrate the value of this particular offering before providing pricing information.

3. Not Customizing Presentations: a sales professional needs to determine what features, benefits, and/or solutions are important to a potential customer and afterwards customize the presentation to focus strictly on these findings.

4. Not Presenting to All Decision Makers: a sales professional must present to all decision makers to prevent delays in the sales process by conducting the presentation again or in the worst case losing the sale.

5. Displaying Insufficient Product Knowledge: a sales professional must be an “expert” by knowing (and staying up to date with) the strengths and weaknesses of the respective company’s and competition product offerings.

6. Criticizing the Competition: a sales professional should never knock the competition especially while promoting the respective company’s product offerings.

7. Not Asking for the Sale: a sales professional should always ask for the sale especially if the product offering will solve a potential customer’s problem(s).

8. Taking Rejection Personally: a sales professional should realize that rejection is part of the sales process and must ask probing questions to uncover the hidden driver(s) responsible for the potential customer’s hesitation.

9. Not Following Up with Prospects: a sales professional must consistently follow up with interested potential customers since it’s possible they will eventually make a purchase.

10. Not Providing After-Sales Support: a sales professional must provide exceptional support to reduce attrition and to help grow business via an increase in share of wallet or cross-selling.

Did I miss any?