Sunday Sales Tip #3: You Can't Actually Make a Sale, But...

...you can sure screw it up. As we talked about last week, it's impossible to actually sell anything, because a prerequisite for any sale to occur is that there is a buyer ready and able to buy the product or service at the price offered. All you can do is facilitate their buying process.

But there are certainly some things you can do to blow the sale. Here are my top four:

1. Desperation is as much of a turn-off in a salesperson as it is in a romantic partner. It raises people's suspicions that maybe there's something you're hiding. Even if the deal does go through, it puts you at a major disadvantage for the negotiation phase if the buyer knows you need the deal a whole lot worse than they do. Be confident, but not cocky.
2. Poor presentation can blow a deal just like being out of focus or poorly framed can ruin a photograph of a beautiful subject. You don't have to be a brilliant public speaker capable of motivating an audience of thousands, but you have to be able to put together a focused, cohesive presentation with a clear, simple message.
3. Lack of information works in both directions. If you don't have sufficient information about the buyer's needs and other unique circumstances, you can't help them solve those needs with your product. Conversely, you need to make every bit of information the buyer wants available to them. Don't push it on them all at once, but have it ready, let them know it's available, and provide it promptly when asked. Everyone wants to make an "informed decision", right? Help them do that and the deal will close faster and they'll be happier about it.
4. Negotiation is usually thought of as something that happens at the end of the process, but it is actually an undercurrent through the entire process. Many a deal has been lost because the buyer and seller simply couldn't come to terms. That's because the parties didn't learn early enough on which points were non-negotiable. I just bought a car yesterday, and our final drive-out price was a non-negotiable point for us. We told the salesperson that right up front, and he said, "I think we can work within that". Think what an incredible waste of time it would have been for all of us if he had proceeded with the deal thinking he'd be able to talk us into going up a few hundred dollars once we got into price negotiation? Negotiation shouldn't be a whole new discovery process -- it should be a matter of simply articulating and clarifying what you have already agreed to previously.