Think of the worst advice you ever got in your sales career.
Did you know that the advice was bad… or did you have to learn that the hard way?
“Just tell them what they want to hear.”
Not exactly those words, but that was the general idea. heard that early in my career but I knew not to take that kind of advice when it came to software sales. Now surely no one is 100% airtight truthful on every point they say, but telling a customer what they want to hear to try just to accelerate a deal or qualify pipe is almost always going to screw you and others over. That’s exactly the kind of thing that’s going to get exposed sooner or later. Plus if someone’s going to get DQ’ed, better to do it sooner. Saves you and others a ton of time.
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“Just take it off the street and we’ll figure it out”
Easily the worst way to build a network of clients
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Bring the customer to a strip club and get them laid. I couldn’t believe that came out of the VP of Sales mouth. I was horrified, and no, I didn’t take his advice. I got him fired instead.
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“Go after everyone you can think of”
Not everyone is going to be a good fit for your product or solution and you need to be strategic in who you engage.
“You need to be more of an a$$ to your employees.”
I was on frontline management with 12-13 direct reports. My approach was a servant leadership approach and in comes a new manager that didn’t hire me. So he didn’t much care for my approach, and wanted me to be a clone of his style. Hence, he wanted me to be someone I wasn’t and particularly mean.
I was all for holding them accountable, just not in the exact rude way he operated… so to him it wasn’t effective. Yet I was one of the highest performing managers in the country. Hence, I did not stay in that role long.