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Anthony Iannarino

Are you absolutely sure that you’re not doing things to cripple your sales and goals in the end? Our guest today will shed light on the 10 Mistakes that Kill Sales Opportunities.

I’m bringing in Anthony Iannarino, the mastermind behind thesalesblog.com. His daily blog is dedicated to provide salespeople with the much-needed practical tips and insights every salesperson should know in order to help advance a career in sales. Anthony is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, coach, and sales leader.

Today, we will dive deep into a blog post Anthony has written back in 2014 about the 10 Mistakes that Kill Sales Opportunities. Due to time constraint, we can’t discuss each one of them but we will delve into the most important ones.

Here are the highlights of my conversation with Anthony:

10 Mistakes that Kill Sales Opportunities

1.  Selling Without Dissatisfaction

If you can’t find or create a compelling reason for your prospective client to change, you aren’t going to make a sale. No deal.
You have a great product? Great! But until you get the customer to agree that they’re unhappy in their current state, they’re not going to move forward with you because they’re not yet compelled to do that.

How you can push somebody to recognize that change:
They have to recognize it personally, but you can nudge them along the path so they can recognize it.

Give them a vision of:

• What’s at stake
• How to avoid that risk
• Where they’re going. 

2.  Asking for Unearned Commitments

[Tweet “In every sales interaction, it’s the salesperson’s obligation to create value for that customer; otherwise you’re not allowed to ask for what you want.- Anthony Iannarino @iannarino“]

• If you’re a transactional salesperson, you need to ask and continue to ask.
• You can’t ask for the close because you haven’t earned the right to ask for the close.

How to earn the right to ask for a close?

Make sure:

• You’ve gone all the way through your process
• You know the customer is coming to a good decision
• You’re going to execute on whatever is sold to you.

Why is this important? It’s a violation of trust

3.  Poor follow up

• Anthony did a follow up with a client 76 times

• If that’s where your heart is, if you’re really about creating value and you know you’re the one that can do that for them, you’re obligated to keep on trying to help them.
• Having a great follow up and persistence as your differentiators, aside from VALUE

What sellers can do to create a compelling reason for their customers to buy:

Don’t try to make up something compelling. Find out what’s already compelling.

• What’s the real strategic objective?
• What’s the real outcome that they need?
• How does what I do, in a way, help them get to that outcome?

Getting this information before sitting down with a decision-maker about it:

• Put the relationship ABOVE the transaction.
• Listen and understand your customer’s needs.

4.  Not building consensus

Why sellers have a tough time building the consensus:

• They don’t know they need it.
• Sometimes stakeholders don’t want to give up the power.
• Some salespeople just have trouble giving that commitment.
• Politics as an important part, acknowledging the threat, and dealing with it together.

Current projects Anthony is working on:
Book: 17 Elements: 9 Success Elements and 8 Sales Goals
Connect with Anthony via thesalesblog.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thesalesblog
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/iannarino
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iannarino
Email: iannarino@gmail.com
Join the newsletter every Sunday
Scroll down in his site and sign up to get each post in your email everyday.

Anthony’s Major Takeaway:

Put the relationship above the transactions if you want to have lifetime relationships, if you want to be a trusted adviser, and if you want to stake out that position where you own all the opportunities.

If you put the transaction above the relationship, just being transactional makes you transactional. Your customer is going to treat you that way too because you set the standard. 

Episode Resources:

www.thesalesblog.com

Anthony’s blog on the 10 Mistakes that Kill Sales Opportunities

Judy Garmaise – The Power of Follow Up

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