All too often, the sale is lost before it ever really gets started. Too many sales professionals practice bad habits right out of the gate, seriously jeopardizing their chances of success. Here are three common sales mistakes that get made in the first half-minute of far too many sales conversations.

Do you use social proof to help your customers see the big picture? The idea behind Social Proof is that customers are more comfortable moving beyond an objection if someone else like them has done so already. Let your customers learn from what other people have done.

Let’s start by saying that no one is interested in your excuses. No one. Ever. Harsh but true. Management cares about results not excuses. Data, yes. Facts, yes. Quantifiable explanations, yes. But never excuses. Here are the top 5 excuses killing your sales career.

Your strongest competition in sales is a mental construct in your prospect’s mind. Psychologists call it the “status quo bias” – which is the allure of doing nothing at all, because fear of loss is greater than hope for gain. Here are 3 ways to overcome the status quo bias.

Sales Leaders: first, let’s all agree that no matter what your title is, you are a coach. You are responsible for your teams development, not just directing them. With that being the case, do you know the biggest mistake managers make when coaching their teams?

​Why are we so terrified of buyer objections?  We wince, we cringe and do all we can to avoid them. But why? What’s the very worse thing that could happen? They don’t buy! As salespeople, we must learn to embrace buyer objections and recognize the benefits of confidently dealing with them.

Congratulations. You’ve begun your journey into the wonderful, scary, thrilling, ill-defined, mysterious world of sales. Here’s the bad news: ain’t nobody gonna take you by the hand and tell you how to be successful. That’s also the good news, because it is best left to you to determine how you define success. If you want the greatest chance to maximize your early results, here are three ideas to get you started.

Sometimes we come across customers trapped in their own mental dilemma. They like what you have to offer, but they are hesitant to make a change. What you are dealing with is what psychologists refer to as the “Status Quo Bias.” There is a technique that might help you reframe this discussion. I call it the “If-vs-When” question.

​Anyone who knows Ryan Taft would agree that he wasn’t a dog person…until recently. As a dog owner for just over a year now, he has noticed how great his dog, Odie, is at sales. With that backdrop, here are seven things he has learned, or been reminded of, about selling from Odie.

If you’re in a sales funk you don’t need the same old advice you’ve heard before – think positive; visualize success. That’s good advice and could be helpful in working your way out of your slump. But I want to talk about vaulting out of that Godforsaken state and into top performance mode right now.