6 Sales Mistakes Shops Must Avoid

BEING AN ENTREPRENEUR, you know sales is of utmost importance to keep your business up and running. First of course, you’ve mastered your craft, providing your customers with innovative, quality products. But are you handling your sales process correctly? Too often simple mistakes can cost you, and your bottom line suffers. Here are seven errors to avoid and how to avoid them, making your sales acumen the best it can be.

1. Moving your current account manager/order taker over to an outbound salesperson.

mistake: I’ve seen this happen way too many times unsuccessfully. A shop will move a current customer service person (or inside salesperson/order taker) to then go outbound and sell into net-new customers. The challenge here is that these team members aren’t good at outbound selling and also don’t enjoy the work. Just because they are good at the reactive sales process most of us follow today does not mean that will translate over to success in cold outbound net-new sales.

instead: Look at hiring a new outbound seller. You can find someone with experience that gets the role and enjoys the work. You could also outsource this work. There are plenty of lead generation companies that will run an outbound strategy on your behalf. You also can hire a virtual assistant to do that outbound work. In my experience these options seem to work better than forcing someone on your current team into that role.

2. Hire 100% commission sellers.

mistake: Plenty of shop owners have had an experience where they find someone in their market and pay them 100% commission. They often think the commission payment will be enough to motivate them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually work out. They aren’t bought into the business. They don’t effectively communicate the value of the shop. They don’t interact well with the rest of the team. I’ve seen it end poorly more times than not.

instead: Invest in the right person. Bring them onto the team. Have them be accountable to activity and metrics. They should stay on message and communicate the value you provide. Overall, you have much more control over a critical part of your business by having them under your roof.
Rely on word of mouth.

mistake: Most of us are at a place where our sales/growth is on autopilot. We just hope and pray that people will continue to find us, refer us, and continue to order from us.

instead: Focus on building an outbound function. Invest in your growth. Put time and effort into building this side of the business. You need as much focus on this area as you do for your production environment. We’ve been lucky as an industry to be able to grow organically. Don’t rely on this as your only strategy going forward.

Advertisement

3. Focus selling efforts in the slow months only.

mistake: I get more calls asking for sales support and guidance in January and February than any other months of the year. That’s almost always because our industry slows down during the winter and people start getting worried. The issue here is that it takes time to build up this strategy and results are not going to be immediate.

instead: Ramp up outbound sales when you are busy as it will take time to see the investment pay off. I usually see it take a good six months of outbound work for consistent revenue to start trickling in. Like everything in business, you must focus on it, invest in it, and manage it closely.

4. Trust in boring and routine prospecting efforts.

mistake: When most shops venture into outbound selling territory, they often lack the creativity needed to be successful in this area. Typically, they focus on just calling or emailing.

instead: Get imaginative in your outreach strategies. I’ve seen old-school door knocking work well for some shops. Try focusing on highly curated kits/boxes for your top-tier prospects. Think about attending conferences or trade shows tied to the top verticals/industries that you service. Partner with your local chamber of commerce or networking group to expand your center of influence. Don’t get me wrong, boring outreach still works. However, I find shops enjoy the hard work more when it’s mixed with innovative strategies.

5. Focusing on limited outreach to prospects.

mistake: I hear statements like this often: “We tried outbound selling and sent a couple of emails and called some folks, but it didn’t work.” Thinking that a few touches to customers will be sufficient and create a pipeline of new sales is a strong misconception.

instead: Make your outreach campaign driven. Meaning, there should be multiple touches in the campaign (usually 10+) .These campaigns also should be multichannel or a mix of emails, calls, social media connections/messages, and drop-ins. Plenty of shops I talk to are nervous that people will get annoyed with consistent communication. I wouldn’t be worried about this. Outbound outreach is how most businesses grow. Finally, make the language focused, targeted, and direct to the industry you’re reaching out to. Tell them how you help others in their industry. Focus on them, not you. Not only do they not care about DTG, they also don’t know what that means! I’ve seen these personalized outbound campaigns work well for print shops.

Advertisement

6.Letting salespeople sink or swim.

mistake: Supporting salespeople can be demanding, considering most shop owners have not been sales managers or led a team of salespeople before. Most of you reading this probably have hired a seller that has failed. Often, the sellers aren’t 100% to blame for their lack of success. I find limited support, guidance, and incentives needed to help shop salespeople succeed.

instead: Focus on three key areas to truly back your sales team members.

• Oversight: Sales leadership might be somewhat foreign to you. This doesn’t mean you should just leave sellers alone. Set up weekly one-on-one’s with them. Work together on their pipeline and the deals they are managing. Uncover areas of friction and help them to overcome issues they face.
• Activity: Sales is a numbers game. Activity is needed to drive new opportunities. Help your salespeople track their activities and hold them accountable to hitting their KPI’s consistently.
• Organization: CRM and other tools are going to be needed for salespeople to stay organized. Invest in tooling to help them automate some of the outreach and keep things in order.

Advertisement