Noob School - Episode 20: 10 Rookie Sales Mistakes

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

John's flying solo once again! This time, he breaks down 10 most common mistakes made by Sales Noobs. So, if you're about to head into Year 1 of sales, you've gotta give this episode a listen. Maybe take some notes, too. Follow John on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/johnsterling_ Facebook: facebook.com/johnsterlingsales Twitter: twitter.com/johnsterling_ TikTok: tiktok.com/@johnsterling_

Hey, everybody, welcome back to Noob School. Today, we have something a little special. I decided to just throw out the top ten things that Noobes mess up on. I've seen it happen over and over again. So I'm going to give you the top ten mistakes they make, what kind of in their first year are selling. And maybe this will save Saw You, save you the time, you know, to make these mistakes and have to learn for yourself.

So I'll just run through them real quick. That was a nice quick episode here. Top 10 things not to do if you're a noob. Number one, this is easier said than done, I suppose, but noobs tend to talk too much. And I think it's because they're nervous. Maybe they're uncomfortable with a pause. I don't know.

But the soon as you can learn not to talk too much and to ask questions and listen, the better off you're going to be. You know, one way to do that is to prepare, is to have your questions listed out. And when someone asks you a question, right, they'll quickly, a savvy buyer very often will say, well, tell me about your company, right?

and you could just be off of the races. Or what's your background or whatever they might ask you? They're very often trying to get you off your game. So what you want to do is you want to be prepared for that. You want to have your questions all written out, all the stuff you need to know, and you need to acknowledge they ask you a question. And you can either say, I'd like to answer that. If you don't mind, I want to answer it at the end.

Once I get my questions answered or I need to. more information before I answer that question if that's an appropriate answer or you want to answer it quickly quickly so if someone asked me that question John tell me about yourself right at this point I can talk to you for about a day and a half right I got all kind of stories I could tell you from exploits around the world but who cares right who cares what I'm trying to do is get my questions answered so I would say well you know I had a good career here with a nice company in in Greenville called DataStream and since then I've made some investments and been trying to help

help some wrote a book and helping some folks with their getting started to sales. So just kind of quickly downplay 30 years of work into 15 seconds and say, but let me ask, you know, if you don't mind, let me ask you and I would go right back to my question. So that's a skill. That's something that you practice, you write it down, you know it's going to come, and you're ready for it. If you're not ready for it, it's easy just to go on and on, yamoring, and not making any progress on your sales call. Your sales call is not complete until you get all your information. You need to know what the deal is. Imagine if you asked a doctor, or if you went to a

doctor and the doctor says, hey, John, you know, before we get started, we'd think of that Clemson game last week. And I just started talking going on and all about Clemson, Georgia, and blah, blah, blah. Pretty soon. the nurse comes in and goes, well, next person's here, you know, kind of a silly example, but that's kind of the same thing. Does you no good to be talking when you got the doctor in the room? You want to learn from that person. So that's number one.

Don't talk too much. I just told you what to do to overcome that. Number two is negotiation mistake is giving away something for nothing, right? It's a very, very simple lesson. My good friend Bill Garcia has a company called Tableforce.com, and he's trained all my sales team on negotiations. He's great. But this would be one of the first things he would teach us is don't always get something in return.

So somebody says, hey, John, I like your product and all. And we need some of it, but I need a 10% discount. You know, a new salesperson very often say, oh, yeah, great, we'll take it. Let's get the order. Let's sign the order. And that's a new mistake. A pro would say, oh, 10%.

That's a lot. Huh. So what you're telling me is you want a 10% discount. And so you're going to give us an order if we can give you a 10% discount. Yes. Well, if I'm able to get you a 10% discount, Would you be able to get me and then you fill in the blank? And you should know what you want or better yet, take it back to your boss.

But I would say something like 10%. I can't do 10%, but I can do 8 if you'll give me payment and cash, you know, when we make the order and two referrals and something else. You can always ask for something else. So no matter, if you're really a noob and someone asks you for a discount, The easiest thing to do is to say, I'm not authorized. I would love to, I'm not authorized. And you can go back to your manager and come back with some clever response.

If it was me, though, would always be, I can do that for you, if you can do that for me. So there it is. Just don't say yes. Get something in return. Number three, sometimes a new, maybe even new plus. A lot of people, they'll get more focused on their own success. Like, oh, what do you do? Well, I try to sell, you know, 10 units a month.

That's my job, 10 units a month or 10 sales a month. And, you know, to get beyond that, become a pro, become a real value-added part of the equation, you know, when you're dealing with people out there. You need to think more like a partner. You need to think, what, in fact, is their problem? What is their problem? What is actually happening at their business that they're either not making money they could make or they're losing money or they've got a safety problem?

There's something going on there. I didn't know exactly what it is and how it impacts their bottom line. And then I should be able to, if I have the solution, exchange the solution for something. Usually it's money, right? But it could be other things. It could be a barter. It could be a, you know, advertising barter, you know, where I'm going to get something from you, whatever.

So, but what you don't want to be thinking is my job is just to come. I met this person. He's a prospect. I'm trying to sell him this and get him to buy it. And, you know, that's a transactional thing. And if you think that way, you know, you might make your number for a little while, but you're not going to be a real pro until you start to get into the game of win-win. and really, really going with the mindset of what can we actually help them do,

how can we make their business better, over a long period of time, and then you'll sell more than you can imagine. Number four is kind of in the same vein, confusing price and value. So, you know, we don't want to mess with price, really, until we really understand what the value is. because the price is not really that relevant. You know, if it's $1,000, say, hey, it's only $1,000, you know, that's not a big deal. What if the value is $100?

You know, what if it's just like, you know, what if we're only going to help them to the tune of $100? Well, $1,000 is actually quite expensive. But what if the price is $1 million? Is that expensive? Well, it depends. I mean, what if the value they're going to get is $20 million? And a million dollars is cheap. So before you start thinking about, you know, what the prices are and whether they're cheap or not,

and again, that confuses in our psyches what we personally think the value of money is based on our money, right? A million dollars is a lot than most people. But there's not much, you know, if you're selling, you know, let's say jet planes or something, you know, a million dollars. I'm sure you can get one for a million. So don't confuse your own thoughts of money. with this and don't worry about price and whether it's cheap or not until you know what the value is. And you've got to establish that value with the customer. So, you know, once they agree this thing, you know, a typical way to do it is we've done

some work and we agree this thing could be worth. Customer says, yeah, John, I agree. It could be worth, it could be worth a million dollars a year to our business. and I would say, well, then would it be reasonable that we try our solution and it's $100,000 a year? So you get a 10x on this. So you pay me $100,000, you get a million. If it doesn't work the way we say it, it does, we stop.

That's a pretty good way to sell. We even know what we're talking about. And 100 seems like, $100,000 seems like cheap, right? in that situation. That's kind of where you want to get, where you have trust with the client, you agree on a value, you offer them something

that's less than a one or two or three year payback. It shouldn't be that difficult at that point to make a sale. So don't confuse price and value. Number five, I think sometimes a noob is so excited about making a sale that they'll promise them anything. You know, they'll be like, yeah, we can have it there tomorrow. Yeah, we can have it to you in blue. Yeah, I can get you that discount because they're just so excited. And the easy out here

for you, for any noob, is to use the higher authority argument. So, John, we'll give it to you if it's in blue. We'll give it to you if we can get it there by tomorrow and just say, Charlie, I sure want to. I sure want to get it to you tomorrow. and I want to get it to you in blue, but I can't pull those strings. I don't know. I've got to take a break. I've got to call my manager. You know, I need till tomorrow.

I need until this afternoon. Just buy some time. Use the fact that you're a noob to your advantage and just take a time out. Call the boss. Figure out what the play is. So don't get overexcited about it. You can always check back with your manager to figure out what to do next. So number six is not closing the sale.

This is, you know, you can look at not closing a sale a lot of different ways. But the way I want to talk about today is just having the courage as a noob to simply ask the question, ask for the order. And you can ask for it a couple of times. you ask for it nicely but you could say something you could softly ask for it Charlie if we sit down if what I show you today that I came out here

to show you if this thing looks like it'll help you do what you want it to do what do you think about placing an order this afternoon or what would it look like to get this order taking care of

how would you do something like this So any number of ways you can kind of couch it. You know, at the beginning of the call, in the middle of the call, you can say, I know we're about halfway through. I know you're thinking about getting this thing. You said by Friday, how are we looking right now? Right. A nice, soft way to do it.

And then, of course, at the end, you've seen it all. It looks like it'll help you. What would you like to do next? So a new very often, you know, in the worst situation, We'll talk a lot about themselves, a lot about the product. Be real nice, get along well with the people, and never ask once about actually getting the order. So don't do that. And again, it's a real, like right now, you know, I've got my cheat sheet right here, right?

I'm just going down the list and checking things off. When I make a sales call now, I do the same thing, I promise you. I go in there, I have a piece of paper. Sometimes it's an index card. And I'm like, I brought some stuff with me. I want to make sure I get all these answered before I leave. That's why I wrote it here. So I was telling them.

And they're like, oh, and you'd be amazed how many people like that. They like the fact that I'm meeting with them and I've actually got something. I'm not just, you know, jaw jacking or doing biz dev or, you know, what are you up to? It's like, I've got some stuff to ask you. So write it down. It's a cheat sheet. Show it to them. No big deal.

number seven is being unprepared to handle objections. This is a lack of just pure lack of preparation. I mean, again, you could have it on your cheat sheet. You could go to your manager and say, hey, hey boss, you know, before I go out to make this call, let's go over the common obstacles. What are the things they're going to tell me, you know, the most common things, and what should I say in return? And you should have all those things.

You should practice them with you. your trainer or your manager. And you can write them down, right? Maybe you write them small or they can't read them. I don't know. Maybe you put them on the back, but if you don't know the answers to the obstacles, then you should just write them down and have them written down here. And, you know, I'm not talking about being tricky.

Just if they say something like, you know, if they say, you know, we don't, we don't do business with people that are out on their first sales call. And you could say, well, is that all that's stopping us, you know, from going forward? Yeah. I mean, that could be your answer. Is that all that stopping us? Yeah. So, well, great.

What I'm going to do is get my manager and we'll come back next Tuesday and we'll bring the paperwork with us. You know, I mean, that's a silly one. But anything they could possibly say, particularly the top 10, your manager should know what those are and you should know the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the. simple answer to each one. And again, this is a beautiful thing. If you don't have, if you're able to take the open book tests, you know, and you don't use the book, I mean, whose fault is that? So write your stuff down, take it with you. And don't do it. Here's a new thing, too. I know you think I'm an old dude because I got a piece of paper. Don't do it on your phone, or your iPad or your computer.

I know it's very, very common now, particularly with younger people. I get it. It's very convenient. But, you know, if you're, there's a lot of people, you're still, even young people, even though I do it, if somebody's kind of looking down and typing away and, you know, on their computer or their phone,

there's a little piece of your brain thinking, what are they doing? Are they really taking notes? Are they like, you know, checking Twitter, Snapchat, or I don't know whatever it is, they're checking. So use a, you know, notepad book or I take, I take usually a note card with me, just a little note card. I can kind of just crib it, you know, look at it. So it's an easy one. Objections, you don't have to be a magician, figure out what they are, and write them down the answers.

Here's an easy one. I think, you know, when we're nobs, I think our emotions can run a little high, maybe we're a little bit nervous. And, you know, sometimes a prospect will say something, you know, to poke at you a little bit. Maybe they're particularly if you're new, they might poke at you a little bit and say, oh, there's a new guy, I'm going to ask him some hard questions, or telling me to know what he's talking about, or, you know, who knows,

what they're going to say. And here's the rule. It's an easy, easy rule. No matter what, you don't lose your cool. You don't argue with the prospect, ever. You just don't do it. You want to be completely cool about it. There's nothing that can be helpful about you arguing with the prospect. You will not win the sale. You will not get a second chance. You want to be polite. you want to be cool you want to just you know keep working down your list understand understand where you're coming from you know whatever just be cool about it but figure it out any way you want to but never argue in this with a prospect in a business situation that's that's that's called getting your emotional needs met and business is not where we come to get

our emotional needs met. This is where we make money. So be cool. Be cool. So number nine, this one again is easy. All right, it's easy. I think a noob sometimes thinks,

well, I'm just going to show up the meeting and I'm just going to wing it, right? I'm just going to wing it. And you kind of hope, and I've done this, of course I've done it, you kind of hope that, man, I'm just good enough where I can just wing it and I'll figure it out as we go. And I don't need to prepare.

Maybe I don't know what to prepare. But I promise you, it is a, it's a cheat code if you will literally take the time, prepare for every meeting. And I mean, if you're going to actually have a meeting with someone or a Zoom call, you know, spend some serious time, if you don't know them already, you should spend 30 minutes to an hour just studying all about them and all about their business. So you know what the heck you're talking about. And you're not like, oh, great. Well, it's nice to meet you, Charlie. What's going on there at your company? You know, tell me about your company. Well, just telling that person you did not do your homework. It's not that big a deal. You're just out there fishing. So you need to show up and know what's happening and say,

hey, Charlie, before we get started, congratulations. I saw you just bought that company in Singapore. That's cool. And I also saw, you know, blah, blah, blah. So it is a cheat code. And again, it's work, but at least 30 minutes to an hour on a new person to figure out what the heck's going on. So that's part of your preparation. The other part is just preparing what we just talked about, the sheet.

You know, who are they? what is it we're going to talk about? What do I want to talk about with them? What questions do I want to ask them? What are the objections I should expect? What am I going to do at the end? What is the very last thing I'm going to do? And I would literally...

See how? We'll check marks. Just check them off. Check them off the list. So the conversation can kind of ramble and whatever. But then you're finally back. Great. And so we're back to number...

You know, and you're just working your way down this list. prepare your list for every prospect or every customer before you go in there. It'll make your life a lot easier. And, again, I still do it. It just makes it easy to have a checklist. The last thing that people do, the Noobes, is they spend too much time talking to the wrong person. Okay? And by the wrong person, I mean someone who can't buy anything, right?

There's lots of people who work for companies and they have different approval limits for what they can buy. And some of them are just interested, right? Maybe they work in, you know, the manufacturing department and they say, hey, this thing looks interesting. I think I'll call the sales guy and see what I can learn. And, you know, you need to find out fairly quickly, you know, before you get too far down the demo path. you know what are their intentions if they find out something they like what's it look like for them to get something do you want to prepare for that you want to ask them how they would go about buying and sometimes they're like hey man I own the company I just pull the trigger or they might say

well we got to go in front of the board or maybe they say I got to bring Charlie in and you're like great well let's bring Charlie in you know to the next call so you know we go on and on and we've got more videos in the Noob School. You can read about this or watch it, but it's important. Just think about it. Just because you're talking to a person and that person works at a company. Doesn't mean that's the right person to be talking to. In fact, it could be a complete waste of time. So in as nice a way as possible, try to figure out quickly, you know, if they like it, how does decision get made, who else you need to talk to at that company. And again, I would work with your trainer or your manager to figure out a cool way to do that

because you don't want to be rude either with someone who's nice enough to bring us into the company in the first place. So a little complicated, but just be careful not to waste your time with the wrong person. So that's it for today. Those are your top ten things to not do. And we'll be bringing more to you in the weeks ahead. Talk to you soon. And thanks for watching the Noob School.