It goes without saying, but sales can be one of the most stressful professions out there, period.
Your sales team is constantly feeling the pressure of hitting targets, keeping clients happy, ensuring the delivery of what was promised, and the list goes on. There can, as a result, be a natural tendency for sales professionals to “oversell” in an attempt to close more deals and hit their targets.
However, overselling is one of the biggest culprits behind lost deals. A sales rep, excited by a prospect’s interest in their product or service, can easily begin to add value points to proposals that go above and beyond what a client wants or needs. They think the more features and services they pack into their offering, the more excited their prospect will become, especially if the price isn’t going up! In reality though, the exact opposite is often true. The prospect, overwhelmed by the number of features they’re receiving, will often open the conversation to negotiation or simply will move on to a competitor‘s product to find “a better fit.”
I have one powerful idea for you. Get your sales team practicing this strategy, and you won’t have to worry about how many sales your organization is losing due to the dreaded oversell.
Your sales reps should always walk through the value that they’re going to provide verbally before they put it in the proposal. If your service offers A, B, C and D, ensure the proposal your rep presents to the prospect covers A, B, C and D. The proposal does not need to include E, F and G just for the sake of it. These unexpected additions serve little to no purpose other than confusing the prospect and making them question whether or not your company is really the right fit for them.
Relay to your team the importance of aligning the value you provide with the verbal walkthrough, the written proposal and ultimately the delivered product or service.
[bctt tweet=”Breaking this alignment and resorting to overselling could lead to broken sales results!” username=”EngageColleen”]
Let me know in the comments below, what’s another common method of “overselling” that you’ve observed?
Very true. In india, especially in the insurance industry, people go back to the same customers and keep selling two or more solutions, whether they need or not. The main reason is they run out of prospects. They don’t generate leads on a regular basis and hence they end up selling 2-3 solutions to the same customers and thereby reduction in the persistency percentage. Today a customer can afford but can we predict the future? We are doing injustice to the customers on many occasions.
Many thanks Colleen for a great post via @topsalesworld Much appreciated. — Barry.
It is a wonderful post and very practical too. I have seen people losing customers by adding value after value and ultimately failing to retain the customer.