How To Suck At Sales

My good friend and business partner Brady Rhoades covered these points on a conference call this morning and I thought them well worth sharing.

Remember, unsuccessful habits will always outweigh the positive and progressive habits. These are the habits of unsuccessful sales professionals:

1) Be lazy (get distracted by no-pay activity and forget the name of the game is prospecting and pitching.)
2) Have no goals (go to bed late Sunday after watching a bunch of football with no goals or vision for the week. You’ll walk into the week blind and unmotivated.)
3) Don’t create a schedule (this includes family, personal time, church, extracurricular, etc)
4) Don’t be coachable and think you always know what you’re doing!
5) Let your mommy tell you you’re better than rejection (you’re not…)
6) Find nothing in common with the prospect (people who like me buy and I only sell to people I like.)
7) Know little about the company and products you represent
8) Assume everyone is a prospect (not everyone is a buyer – they’re a suspect before they’re a prospect, reference Sandler Rules.)
9) Let personal life get in the way (ie friends who want to go out on Weeknights, family dinners, happy hour, social clubs, etc. If you respect your career and the future it promises, your friends and family will respect the time you commit to it!)
10) Don’t ask for the sale by letting your prospect think about it! (You must value your time and demand that others value it)
11) Don’t collect qualified referrals
12) And whatever you do, DON’T HAVE FUN!!! Sales don’t make happy salesman, happy salesman make sales.