7 costly sales mistakes to avoid

Closing deals provides a thrill that every sales rep craves. However, in the rush to secure new businesses, many sales teams unwittingly make critical mistakes that harm their chances of turning prospects into customers. 

These oversights may not be immediately obvious—but they actively constrain deal sizes, reduce customer lifetime value, and turn potential customers into lost leads. 

In this article, we’ll delve into 7 costly sales mistakes to avoid at all costs. We’ll outline each misstep, the associated dangers, and most importantly, how to course-correct going forward.

Let’s get started. 

1. Adopting a one-size-fits-all approach

We all have our own unique preferences and needs. This applies to your prospects and clients—both on a personal level, and in terms of their business requirements.

Therefore, adopting a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach to your sales process simply won't cut it. If you want to build strong relationships and close more deals then you have to personalize your approach according to the individual customer/the business they work for. 

Take the time to understand what makes each customer tick. Learn their pain points. Identify their goals. Then, use these insights to tailor and customize each step of the sales process. 

The result? Your prospects feel understood. Your customers feel valued. And you close more deals.

Simplify this process by using an AI sales copilot that helps you synthesise key information spread across your sales tech stack, understand your customers’ preferences, and personalize your approach accordingly. 

2. Not using the latest sales technology

Sales has traditionally been a human-centric art, built on interpersonal relationships and face-to-face conversations. However, technology now plays an undeniably important role across every sales team. For example, the vast majority of today’s sales teams rely heavily on CRM platforms to organize prospects and streamline outreach.

Yet to truly transform your sales operation, you can’t just rely on the same sales technology that every other team is using. You need to be bolder and adopt more innovative solutions. For example, like AI-based solutions. 

AI sales tools like Glyphic transform how sales reps operate. They enhance their productivity, provide personalized recommendations to progress deals faster, and automatically capture insights from each customer interaction.

Sticking with tried-and-tested tools is a recipe for mediocrity. Always be on the lookout for the latest sales technology that might give you an edge over your competitors. 

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Glyphic’s AI sales copilot provides tailored advice to sales reps based on your company’s customer data

3. Focusing more on talking than listening

It's often said that being a good salesperson is about being a smooth talker who can pitch a product persuasively. But that cliché forgets one crucial thing: the importance of listening.

By listening closely to customers and prospects, you gain priceless insights into their goals, pain points and motivations. You understand how to tweak your messaging to appeal directly to what makes them tick. 

Remember: the most effective sales tactic is to give people a solution to their problem. And, you must first listen before you can identify the problem you’re trying to solve. 

On the flip side, if you focus exclusively on speaking, then you won’t learn anything new or helpful. Your approach could even come across as aggressive or overly pushy, which will damage your chances of closing the deal.

The moral of the story? Listen twice as much as you speak. Tuning in is just as important as turning on the charm.

4. Failing to follow up 

Our professional lives are becoming increasingly hectic. The average desk worker bounces around 11 tools just to do their jobs (twice as many as back in 2019), and many of us endlessly bounce from meeting to meeting. 

Therefore, even the most scintillating sales call can slip a prospect's mind. 

That's why salespeople must regularly follow up on promising prospects. A quick, casual check-in reminds them of prior conversations, keeps you front-of-mind, and advances the sale.

So, what’s the best way to do this? Automate follow-ups where possible, using details from previous chats to personalize your message. This saves time while boosting engagement.

Use tools like Glyphic to power this process. With Glyphic, you can automatically generate a personalized follow up email using key points, sales resources, action items, and next steps discussed during your call.

5. Not Qualifying Leads Properly

A sales rep's time is their most precious asset. Every minute wasted on an unqualified lead is potential revenue left on the table. Despite this, many teams do not properly qualify the leads they work—meaning countless hours lost on those with low intent or potential.

In fact, research suggests that 67% of lost sales are due to sales reps not properly qualifying potential customers.

The dangers here are twofold. Firstly, you will waste excessive effort into prospects who will likely never convert. Secondly, you will fail to identify and focus on high-value leads who are primed to buy.

The solution lies in automated lead qualification tools that instantly separate prime prospects from time-wasters. Platforms like Glyphic integrate directly with your CRM, automatically syncing insights from sales calls to qualify leads based on purchasing intent.

This qualification also auto-populates key details into your CRM in real-time, creating a constantly up-to-date lead scoring system. Better still, tools like Glyphic feature AI capabilities that even suggest the right next steps to progress promising opportunities.

The result? More time selling, less time analyzing. Best of all, sales teams can focus their energy exactly where it is most likely to drive revenue. 

6. Not asking for customer feedback

Sales isn’t a neatly transactional, one-way street. Rather, the most successful teams constantly refine and enhance their process based on the evolving needs of their prospects and customers.

How can you deeply understand these needs? By going straight to the source: your existing customers. Ask them thoughtful questions to learn what works well in your current strategy and crucially, what could still be improved. 

Dig into what sets your company apart from the competitors so you can use these insights to optimize your sales approach moving forward. This first-hand feedback will show you precisely how to boost satisfaction, retention and lifetime value amongst your clients.

Customer feedback helps you focus on what really matters: delivering tremendous ongoing value and an incredible experience. Make it a regular part of your process. After closing deals, ask customers to give you honest feedback about what they did/didn’t like about their buying journey. Then, tweak your approach accordingly. 

7. Focusing on acquisition rather than retention

Source: CUSTOMER CHURN: 12 WAYS TO STOP CHURN IMMEDIATELY, SuperOffice

Nothing provides a rush quite like landing a new customer against tough competition. However, as exciting as this is, sales teams should focus just as much (if not more) on retention rather than new client acquisition. 

Why? Because you've already sunk costs into winning your current customers. You’ve earned trust, proved value, and built rapport. So, upselling them on additional products and services tailored to their specific needs is faster than starting from scratch.

This will skyrocket your existing customers’ lifetime value. Extended relationships mean larger purchases, more add-ons and expansions, and invaluable referrals or case studies.

Harvard Business Review once calculated that boosting retention by just 5% can increase profits anywhere from 25% to 95%. Meanwhile, the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 - 70%, compared to 5 - 20% for a new one.

The message is clear: retaining and growing existing accounts deserves more focus than the adrenaline rush of new logos. Shift priorities accordingly for a healthier bottom line.

Final Thoughts

The key takeaway? Even the strongest sales teams still have blindspots, places where revenue is leaking out of the pipeline due to simple yet ultimately costly errors.

But now you're armed with explicit knowledge of which pitfalls to sidestep. From lacking personalization, to poor follow-ups, to focusing on the wrong success metric entirely.

Address these oversights and prepare to drive more deals, larger deal sizes, and longer-lasting customer relationships. Supercharge your sales strategy and leave competitors in the dust.

The first step is awareness - now you know exactly how to refine for excellence. The world's best sales teams didn't get there by accident. They actively rooted out such mistakes, course-corrected, and never looked back. You can do exactly the same.