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Published February 20, 2002 Hope Is Not a Strategy As promised in the last issue I am going to share with you the list of common sales mistakes from the talk I gave at the ProEquities meeting last November in Arlington. When I started this issue I was thinking it would just be a list with a few tag lines but I soon realized that each mistake deserved more than just a cursory reference. With that in mind I have chosen to devote the next several issues of the Bull's-Eye to these mistakes and include examples of how they effect you and how you can overcome them. First, here's a recap of the Three Big Questions from the last issue: Question 1: What are you putting up with? If there is no dissatisfaction there is no desire to change anything. If there is not pain/problem then there will be movement, no sale, no change. Question 2: What do you really want? If there is no vision of what is desired there will be no motivation to change anything. There must be an alternative. Question 3: What are you willing to do to get it? With no willingness to invest money, energy, time, etc., the changes desired will not happen. There must be a commitment to action. Now, let's look at those selling mistakes COMMON SELLING MISTAKE NUMBER ONE: Thinking "hope" is a strategy. I actually heard this for the first time from my wife Vicki. One of her bosses used to say it to his managers. Sales people, like people everywhere, tend not to plan and think things through strategically. Often they choose to overlook what are obvious 'red flags' in the sale they are trying to make and just hope it will all work out. I love luck, but I've learned it's not very reliable. Recurring problems tend to, well, recur. So DO something about them. About a year ago a man came into a training I was doing totally pumped about an account that he expected to land. I recognized the danger signals of euphoria in him, almost always a message to me that there is something wrong. I handed him the marker and asked him to tell us about the "pending" sale while the rest of the students and I asked him questions about it. Within a half hour he was a quieter, more sober person. Before he left he said that he now saw many 'red flags' that he needed to take care of and though he wasn't as 'happy' as when he arrived, he was sure glad he knew what he had to do now. Recognize patterns for what they are, i.e., something over which you have dominion. Deal with them at the source and deal with them completely. In order to be successful in sales as in any calling requires systems and planning. He did close the account and every one of those red flags we uncovered for him was in fact a problem that he had to work through.

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