Hey friends,
This is something I see every single week, not just with early-stage founders, but across all kinds of sales teams and startups.
Friends, former colleagues, everywhere.
Five things that kill deals.
Five mistakes that most sales reps do.
Let's go through them and see if we can help someone, someone, somewhere. 🌏
You're only talking to one person inside the account. One champion. One user. One decision maker, even.
One person carrying the whole deal on their back. There is only one person knowing about you and your product. One.
But if they leave, get busy, or lose an internal fight you never hear about, your deal goes dark with them. 100%.
I read somewhere that Gong studied more than a million deals. Won deals had almost double the contacts of lost ones.
Double.
You jump straight into a demo on the first call. Classic.
I get it. You love your product, so you assume prospects will love it too.
The reps who win more deals do this differently though.
They do a discovery call first. They ask questions on that first call.
They do not show or talk about their product much.
They're trying to figure out what's really going on, what the pain is, and why this account is even talking to them.
Later on, they show the product.
This always shows up after a weak discovery call.
You didn't learn enough about the buyer, so you start filling the silence with features.
I see this a lot with founders and reps. You built the product. You're proud of it.
It's tempting to show off everything it can do. (Really!?)
But buyers only care about the one or two things that actually solve their problem.
Everything else is just noise, even if it took you months to build.
This one is right next to too much pitching.
You are already forming your next sentence while the other person is still talking. (I used to do this all the time!)
What actually works? Slow down.
Let the silence be. Repeat back what they just told you, in your own words, before you answer.
People notice when they feel heard. Rephrase. Ask follow-up questions.
That's how you show you're actually listening.
This is the classic. The call ends, and someone says, "Send me an email, and I'll get back to you." (Oh no!)
That's the moment most deals quietly start dying. You know it. They know it. (I know it too!)
Before you end the call, make sure there's already a date on the calendar, the right people are invited, and everyone knows what question you're answering next.
You can use a sequence of events if you want.
Or just book a go/no go call, a placeholder, anything that gets on their calendar.
Five things.
Five things that cost you real money, dear friend. But they're so simple to fix.
I see at least one of these in almost every pipeline I open.
Most of the time, it's two or three at once. Sometimes all.
Fix even one or two of these, and you'll see a real jump in conversion and win rate.
You'll be amazed how much changes from something this simple.
Thanks for reading this far; see you all next week!
