5 Sales Tactics A Tech Sales Force Should Never Use

Hiring salespeople usually feels like a pretty straightforward exercise. And really, the job itself seems pretty straightforward as well. But don’t confuse straightforward with easy. It’s not, and if bad practices creep into the sales rep’s bag, it becomes even harder. It never ceases to amaze me how many bad practices are utilized by many sales reps. Avoiding the sales tactics I’ll discuss below seems like common sense. But these are habits that I see software, SaaS, and hardware sales reps engage in all too frequently. Let’s take a look at a few of the most egregious habits:

Talk more than they listen

This one exasperates me the most among the items on this list. It also reinforces the unfortunate stereotype of the “fast-talking” salesman. It’s such bad practice that it’s hard to believe anyone would do it. After all, this isn’t the door-to-door salesman trying to pitch his way into your house to sell you a vacuum cleaner. For those of you old enough to remember that fantastic experience! Technology sales, by their very nature, demand a consultative, educational approach. The basic process should start with understanding the problem(s) that your customer needs to solve. This is job one for any sales call.

To do this, you have to listen more than you talk. At least in the beginning. You may need to provide a basic product intro. And you will certainly need to ask some questions. But the goal should always be to get the customer talking as soon and as completely as possible about their issues and interests. Only then can you properly educate the customer on the benefits of your product, RELATIVE to their needs. So please don’t allow your reps to launch into that 90-minute, PowerPoint-driven monologue at the very beginning of a sales call. The prospect will be bored to tears. And the presentation will likely miss the mark on addressing the prospects’ individual needs.  Most importantly, it will often cost you money.

Work inefficiently

I believe that one of the most important attributes in sales is the ability to work as efficiently as possible. Many companies go to great lengths to minimize this aspect. But to a great extent, sales is a “volume business”. Regardless of how well leads are qualified or the sales tactics used, more sales calls = more sales is an important component of success. So, working efficiently is usually critical to the success of an individual sales rep. What does this mean for a rep in actual practice?

Rep best sales tactics practices

• Reps should start the day off with key selling activities as soon as possible. Early morning focus on secondary areas can lead to procrastination and a subpar selling day.
• Reps need to prioritize their activities for the day. What’s most important now? Some days that will mean filling the pipeline with new deals. On other days, closing deals that are in progress will take priority.
• Your company should do everything possible to qualify and prioritize leads prior to receipt by the reps
• Sales Management should track activity to ensure those valuable leads are being worked. And in a timely manner.
• Reps need to understand when a prospect isn’t ready to buy as soon as possible and cut bait. Yes, that means “take no for an answer”. Regardless of how this conflicts with the aggressive sales rep stereotype. This is usually the right time to move the prospect to a lead nurturing campaign. Lead gen/lead nurturing by sales reps is what I call “door-to-door marketing”. It is very expensive and highly inefficient.

Telling everything – or next to nothing – about the product

Above, I discussed the importance of not talking too much. As well as drawing the prospect’s interests out by listening. There comes a point in every sales call, however, when a Rep does need to sell the product. When this time comes, the rep better have a good enough grasp of the product. This allows them to explain how it meets the now-well-understood needs of the prospect. If the requisite amount of product knowledge isn’t there, the sales call will fail.

That’s regardless of what other sales tactics are used. That doesn’t mean that the rep needs to have the deep knowledge of a product engineer. Or be able to answer every prospect’s question flawlessly. Saying “I don’t know, but I’ll get you the answer to that by Friday” to some questions is perfectly ok. Answering every question that way is not. In the technology business, product training should be as prominent as sales training. BS in the tech business is smelled very quickly. Credibility lost is not easily regained.

As opposed to “selling too much”, the converse of knowing and saying too little about the product is almost as bad. Prospects have jobs too and are very busy. It’s critically important in many sales calls to get right to the points that the prospect is most interested in. As quickly as possible. A rep showing off their product knowledge about every software feature or hardware widget detail is problematic as much as an unknowledgeable rep is. Either way, the prospect’s time is being wasted. And your goodwill with them along with it.

Reliance on discounting sales tactics

Of all sales tactics, discounting is usually the go-to crutch of the uneducated or inferior rep. Does this mean that discounting is NEVER appropriate? Definitely not. Maybe your product is truly inferior to the competition. Or the list price is way too high for the market segment. Maybe the rep is dealing with a large enterprise customer with real buying power and knows how to use it. There are other circumstances as well where discounting makes sense.

But a sure sign of trouble is a rep that almost immediately turns to this form of deal-making. At the first sign of customer objections. Sometimes you have to cut prices to get a deal. But in most cases, there should be an attempt to get something back from the customer to balance the discounting. Listing their Logo on our website, acting as a reference with other customers, or maybe a longer contract term. These are just a few examples. If you see reps turning to discounting when there appears to be no good reason, it’s time to train or retrain them. Or worse.

Follow up too little – or too much

This is a difficult but extremely important topic on sales tactics. It should be obvious to anyone with a shred of common sense that a rep should not pester their customer to annoyance. Nor leave them waiting and wishing for a follow-up call.  The key—and difficulty— is judging what lies between these two extremes. And “living in that lane”. It’s impossible to read a prospect’s mind. Sometimes, at a given point in time, they don’t even know what THEY want!  A good sales rep will look for cues and follow them. I believe that this skill is one of the most underrated in technology sales. It’s as much of an art as it is a science. But here are some best practices for sales reps to consider following in order to maximize the likelihood of a sale:

Follow up tactics

• Whenever possible, don’t ASSUME. ASK the prospect for an appropriate time to follow up.
• Make sure to provide all discussed follow-on answers and materials within the agreed-upon time window.
• Become a student of body language and speech tone. These subtle attributes can often be more revealing than polite words.
• If in a follow-up call, the prospect seems annoyed, reduce the frequency of follow-up.
• If, in a follow-up call, the prospect appears stressed by deadlines that your product can impact, do everything possible to pull follow-up activities forward.

There are some pretty strong opinions I hold on dysfunctional sales tactics and practices. I’d recommend you look out for these in your reps. Many have experience and opinions on this topic. Sales is such an important activity in EVERY technology company. Please chime in with your own views by leaving a comment below.

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