Sales Myths are Hard to Stop

Introduction

A myth is “a person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.” Sales is full of myths, primarily because it has never been considered worthy of being treated as a science. It has evolved empirically by oral tradition and by pop-experts who typically lack rigorous academic training. These self-proclaimed gurus do however excel at self-promotion and can out bs the other wannabe gurus. They spew out an endless stream of book-of-the-month paperbacks and articles in magazines more-concerned with filling white space than with reality. Worse, virtually ever book written on the subject is a plagiarized rehash of other books – sheep endlessly walking in circles, nose to ass, the view never changing.

Here then are my top 10 myths with counterbalancing realities:

1. Positive Attitude

A positive attitude is required to be successful.

This is the ultimate example of how bullshit, repeated often enough, comes to be accepted as fact, indeed gospel, without any critical examination or research to back up the claim. Simple proof – does it take a positive attitude to ride a bicycle, play a piano, drive a car, or any number of other learned tasks? Why should learning to sell be any different?

2. Always Be Closing

Close early, close often, close hard and you will conquer all.

Should a surgeon Always Be Operating? Even when the patient’s tests are negative? Closing a prospect before you find out if you can help the prospect makes you a thief, not a professional sales rep. What’s worse, you will come across as self-serving and untrustworthy and will lose many sales for each “conquest” and never know it.

3. Wing It

Sales is an art form best learned as you go along by practice.

Would you go to a doctor that skipped medical school and wings-it, for a life-threatening emergency? Fly in a plane with a “pilot” that has no training or license? Me neither. If sales is not a profession, it’s because the participants don’t consider it one. Nor do they act like they belong to one. The low-life stereotype the public has of sales reps is what we collectively deserve.

4. Experience Counts

Experienced reps usually outsell beginners.

Reps that follow the best methodology and work hard make the deals. You can have 20 years so-called “experience” which in reality is 20 years doing the wrong thing, or what worked for you 20 years ago but is now sadly obsolete.

5. Likable & Nice

Prospects must like you or they won’t buy from you.

This one is easy. Do you like everybody you do business with? With the checkout cashier at the market? The mechanic who fixes your car? Buying decisions are made considering many factors – price, features, quality, guarantee – with “liking the sales rep” so far down the list as to be meaningless. Schmoozers say they are successful because they like everybody and are liked in return. What they don’t say, and rarely realize, is that they could have been way more successful with expert methodology and save the warm fuzzies for their dog.