Westside Toastmasters is located in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California

Three Common Mistakes Salespeople Make

How do salespeople run into difficulties with customers? Sales and Marketing Management magazine in its February 2000 issue featured interviews with buyers responsible for billions of dollars in purchases. Their insights reflected these areas of concerns:

• They stay with their own agenda instead of trying to understand the customer's. Salespeople who do this often don't listen to what customers have to say or ask what they want. (They don't use a consultative approach.)

• They don't plan well, which often means that they will not have well-thought-out call objectives.

• They don't add value to the sale, either because they don't have solid product knowledge or they don't understand the customer's business, industry, or issues.