Four Reasons Your Sales Are Not Closing

People are constantly asking me about specific sales scenarios in which the sale did not close: “What could I have done differently in order to close that sale?” It’s usually not just one issue. Typically salespeople are not closing sales due to a number of mistakes.

Here are The Four Most Common Reasons You’re Not Closing Sales

#1: You’re not perceived as distinct from the competition. The second your prospect decides that you seem similar to other salespeople, the sale has basically ended. When your prospect realizes that your product and service are basically the same thing as what others are pitching, you suddenly become low value.

It’s critical that you do everything in your power to be totally and completely distinct from your competition: how you behave, how you present, how you ask questions, how you interact and ultimately how you position your product.

#2. You present too soon. Salespeople are typically presenting way too early in the sales process. Before presenting, make sure that you’ve fully qualified your prospects for doing business with you. Can you name their key challenges? How about their objectives? What have they tried in the past to solve their challenges? Why did they fail? You won’t knock your presentation out of the ballpark until you fully understand these items.

#3. You don’t understand your prospects’ goals. Now that you’ve decided to push your presentation towards the end of the sales process, it’s time to fully understand exactly what your prospects want to accomplish in the first place.

Every prospect has a particular set of goals that he or she wants to achieve by buying or investing in your product or service. It’s critical that you precisely understand their objectives so that you can develop a solution that focuses 100% on those objectives.

#4. You don’t discuss budget. Salespeople always tell me how they’ve tried to ask for budgets in the past, but have consistently been unsuccessful because prospects always say they don’t have a budget or something to that effect. If this sounds familiar it’s because you haven’t developed a sufficient connection with your prospects in the first place.

Every selling situation must include a conversation about budget, because if you present something that is either way over budget or way below budget, you’re going to blow yourself out of the water and likely lose the sale. It’s absolutely a must to discuss budget and make sure that you’re ultimately on the same page with your prospects before you present your solution.

Mistakes that prevent closing sales don’t have to happen. You just have to understand these four reasons why you’re not closing sales. Once you do, you can now do everything in your power to avoid making these errors and ultimately increase your sales. Share which of these four reasons ring most true to you. Please share below in the comments.

Get 25 tips to crush your sales goal. Written by Marc Wayshak, sales strategist & author of the book, "Game Plan Selling."

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About the Author Marc Wayshak

Marc is is the best-selling author of three books on sales and leadership, including the highly acclaimed titles Game Plan Selling, The High-Velocity Sales Organization and his forthcoming book, Sales Conversations, Mastered.

Marc is a contributor to Inc, HubSpot, Fast Company, Entrepreneur Magazine, and Huffington Post Business. He also hosts a popular YouTube channel on sales strategy with over 103,000 subscribers.

Marc helps thousands of people his data-driven, science-based approach to selling that utilizes all the best tools available to sales organizations today.

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