7 Top Mistakes Every Salesperson Makes (Don’t Do These)
Notes
Sales Mistakes Salespeople Make
In this episode we cover the Top 7 Seven Mistakes Every Salesperson Makes. These sales tips are good for salespeople of any level who may or may not need sales training. Have you made these mistakes? Salespeople have a tough job…they have to think ahead, know what to say, and be ready for anything. But we should always be prepared to not make these mistakes so you can close more deals. Rob has done every single one of these so you don’t have to.
What Are Some Top Mistakes?
Success in professional sales is rarely defined by a single “magic” pitch; but it is the result of a disciplined process that avoids common operational errors. Often sales professionals unknowingly sabotage themselves by relying on outdated tactics or forget to create a framework for their meetings. This episode analyzes the top seven mistakes that hinder growth and provides actionable strategies to fix each to make sure your sales process is as efficient and buyer-centric as possible.
What mistakes have you made that I missed?
In this episode of The Slow Pitch Sales Podcast, host Rob Jager shares the top 7 tips he hears salespeople make often. Some are simple fixes, others are a bit more complex. Regardless, listen to this episode if you want to improve your likelihood of closing a sale by not making these mistakes.
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
0:16 Salesperson Mistake 1
0:58 Salesperson Mistake 2
1:41 Salesperson Mistake 3
2:27 Salesperson Mistake 4
3:55 Salesperson Mistake 5
4:58 Salesperson Mistake 6
6:23 Salesperson Mistake 7
Keywords: Sales Tips, Sales Training, The Slow Pitch, Sales, Sales Podcast, Service Business, Close More Deals, Salesperson, Mistakes, How to Close Sales, Don’t do this in sales, sales problems, sales help
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The Episode
Rob JagerĀ 00:00
If you’re a salesperson, you’ve probably made at least half of these mistakes at one time or another. And we’re gonna get into these and how you can fix them. Let’s get started.
Rob JagerĀ 00:09
Ready. Here we go. First one, they talk too soon. Every sales person I know gets started talking way too soon. And what I mean by that is way too soon before they start to understand what their prospect actually needs and wants. So the first few minutes of every conversation might be centered around just talking about what you can do, and that really should not be happening. Sorry, it shouldn’t.
Rob JagerĀ 00:37
What you should be doing instead is asking the question of the prospect, why am I here? What am I? What am I doing here? By doing that, you’re making them tell you why you’re there, and now you have a reason to start to have the sale.
Rob JagerĀ 00:50
Number two, they confuse interest with pain. What I mean by that is, the person calls you have a conversation, they sound interested. They’re ready to buy. They’re not ready to buy. The problem is, is they have not told you any of the reasons why they need to buy. You’ve not asked enough questions about if they have the pain, the problems that they need to solve, or the money that’s going to be going out the door by not doing what they’re needing to do. There’s a whole bunch of things that you need to find out, and just because they have interest does not mean that they have the pain that they need in order to buy your product or service. So make sure that you stop for a minute and ask the question, What are the five, the three, the seven pains that they have that’s going to verify that they absolutely need to buy my product or service.
Rob JagerĀ 01:37
Number three, every sales person I know at some point in time accepts the surface level answers. And what I mean by that is that you ask a question and they give you a very pet answer. It’s a very sounds good, but it gives you no substance whatsoever, or no feeling of what’s going on inside.
Rob JagerĀ 01:54
So you might ask a question, what’s going to happen if you don’t do this? Well, they might say, Well, if we don’t do this, then we’re going to lose some sales. And you’re going to go, Oh, we’re going to lose some sales instead of losing why? Why are you going to lose some sales? How much sales are you thinking you’re going to lose? That’s not a big deal, is it? If you lose a couple of sales, that’s okay, isn’t it? And by asking that, you’re going to find out whether or not it’s a real problem. And there’s several other questions you need to be asking to find out if that pain is real and how much that’s actually going to cause a problem if they don’t take care of it.
Rob JagerĀ 02:26
Number four, sales, people forget to ask questions about money. And what I mean by that is, some people are really good. Don’t get me wrong, some people are really good at saying, well, what’s the budget? But asking, what’s the budget and determining what the budget could be are two different things. And what I mean by that is, if you’re asking, what is your budget before you even find out any sort of pain or have any conversations, that’s too early, because if you’re asking about the budget before you find out pain, you can’t tell whether that budget is real or good or bad, or even in realm of what they should be paying, right? So let me put it to you this way, if you go through the conversation and you find out. Pain one, if they don’t take care of that problem, it’s going to cost them $1,000 an hour for the next 20 weeks. That’s a problem, right? How much is that number adding up to? And then how much is your service now you have a budget range. Okay? Number two, what if you said all right, now that’s number one. But number two, they now have a hiring problem. They can’t keep the staff in place. Well, that’s a whole other thing that’s maybe outside of your control, but that’s going to be a problem, right? So if you lose money and you can’t keep it staffed, that’s going to cause a problem for your solution, because the staff is not going to be there to take care of the problem that you need to have the conversation about, right? You need to get into those questions that have to do with budget, but you cannot do it until you have a conversation about pain. Talking about budget before pain is absolutely the wrong thing to do. It will hurt you in the long run.
Rob JagerĀ 03:53
Number five sales people start to give free consulting. And basically what I mean by that is you start giving them answers, solutions to their problems before you even close the deal. Okay, so that sounds like a fun deal. Makes you feel good, right? I’ve got the answers for you. I can help you. The problem is, is, when you do that, they then start to go, Well, this is the solution. This is what I can do this. I can do this on my own. Why do I need you? And you’ve just lost the sale? Number one.
Rob JagerĀ 04:19
Number two, what if, in that conversation, they say, Well, Joe in accounting, or Joe in operate, whatever the department it is, they should be doing those things. Maybe, as the owner of this company, I should be holding that person accountable to what they’re supposed to be doing. They’re not doing that’s exactly what they should be doing. Now, I have a conversation with them, and they’ve just lost the deal, right? So never give out free consulting. And if you do, just understand that it could be the thing that loses the deal. That doesn’t mean you have to be stingy with consulting. You can ask questions that make them understand you know the solution without giving the solution.
Rob JagerĀ 04:57
Number six, they chase people who cannot even say yes. So. Yes, they sound like somebody that can make a decision. The problem is, they’re the one that’s pulling together the information to try to make a decision, but the only decision that they can make is, no, you’re not a fit to do the work.
Rob JagerĀ 05:11
If you’re talking to somebody who has the ability to say no to you, that’s fine, but you better make sure that you’re talking to somebody that has the ability to say yes at the same time, if they can’t say yes, then you’re talking to the wrong person. You need to find the right person who can, in fact, say yes. I had this the other day, not too long ago, where I was having a conversation with somebody, and they said to me, I am just the person trying to collect this information.
Rob JagerĀ 05:37
I said, Ah, okay, no problem. Which I kind of had the feeling that that was what was going on, right? So I said, would it make sense to invite me over to have a quick meeting with that other person that gave the name? And would it make sense for me to have a quick conversation with them and ask some questions, but also let them ask me some questions? Because I feel like, I mean, while you’re collecting all this information, there’s probably some things that they want to ask that they haven’t told you about yet. Would that make sense? And she said, yeah, probably would let me, let me see if I can reach out, and let’s set up a meeting. And then she did.
Rob JagerĀ 06:09
So the thing is, is, if you don’t know who you’re talking, to start to dive down and to find out whether or not they’re the person that can say yes or just No. That’s going to make a difference when you get to the point of making a decision.
Rob JagerĀ 06:22
Finally, number seven, the mistake activity for progress. And here’s what I mean by that. It may sound like it, you’re doing activities. You’re doing all the things you’re supposed to do by making the calls, you’re writing out estimates, you’re doing all these activities. And while those are important, none of it is important if you haven’t qualified, the prospect to make sure that they’re actually qualified to be in your pipeline.
Rob JagerĀ 06:45
If they’re not qualified, or at any point in time that they’re in your process and you’ve determined that they’re not qualified, they should be pushed out. Don’t continue down the path. Do not continue to write estimates or have conversations or phone calls until you know that they are, in fact, qualified to be in your pipeline. Too many sales people leave people in their pipeline that are not qualified to be there, because what they think is, if I have all these leads that I’m working, I’m busy.
Rob JagerĀ 07:12
And being busy is one thing, but it’s not getting the more deals done, right? It’s it’s just being busy. So whatever you need to do, take a look at your list, and I want you to analyze the list this way. Number 1am, I talking to the prospect that is the right person that can say yes. Number two, do they have the right to be in my pipeline? If they’re don’t have the right to be in the pipeline, meaning they don’t probably have a budget, the way it sounds.
Rob JagerĀ 07:34
They don’t have enough pain that they that they’ve described the right people that are supposed to be at the table having the conversation with me, are not able or willing to be on the table with me. Those are all reasons to say they do not belong in my pipeline. They’re probably not qualified. Verify and try to get those things to line up if they do not immediately push them out.
Rob JagerĀ 07:55
So those are the top seven things that I see most sales people make when dealing with prospects. Those are the things that you can prevent Now by doing the things that we just talked about. If you found this to be helpful, remember to like and subscribe, because there’s gonna be more content just like this in the future, to help you sell more, remember slow down and close more you.