Unintended consequences are things we don’t intend to happen. The federal government is infamous for this.

An example. The federal Cash for Clunkers program resulted in a net increase in car sales of only 125,000 cars – at a cost to US taxpayers of $24,000 per vehicle (see Further sales tips reading below).

I don’t mean to pick on the federal government (well, maybe a little bit), but the truth is that unintended consequences occur in all areas of our lives. They also, as you have already guessed, occur in sales.

Unintended Consequences In Sales Are Accidental, But Avoidable
We’ve all seen salespeople heading toward a customer three-car pileup with the best of intentions. You might see the danger ahead, but they’re completely unaware of what lies in front of them.

While they don’t mean to blunder, they could have avoided the unwanted problems by thinking ahead. By projecting where their current course of action is leading and consulting with the more senior members of their team for advice, a customer car wreck might be averted.

6 Common Unintended Consequences In Sales

1. Overdoing the “friendly” part of sales can frequently backfire on us. Customers hate disingenuous people. Customers realize you don’t care about them that much.

2. Asking prospects intensive qualifying questions can put them on the defensive. No one likes being backed into a corner. This occurs so frequently that I’m planning on writing a sales tips post about it in the upcoming weeks.

3. In order not to offend customers, we frequently don’t introduce additional products and services to them. “This customer is buying $35,000 per month from me of product X; I don’t want to rock the boat by pushing for more.” This guarantees they will be looking at your competitors to find other products that you’re afraid to sell them because it might be offensive.

4. Pushing for a close is so 1950’s. Again, no one likes being backed into a corner. When this happens, customers bring out the heavy artillery loaded with plenty of objection bullets.

5. Don’t most of us already know that talking badly about the competition always cheapens us and ironically gives more credibility to our competitors?

6. Selling to a non-decision-maker (e.g. recommender, information gatherer) makes us feel good because it’s easy and we feel we’re making real progress. Nothing could be further from the truth. We’re in fact wasting our time and alienating the real decision makers because: a) They don’t think we’re smart enough to figure out who the real DM’s are, and b) They think we perceive them as unimportant.

Sales Tips Wrap Up
I’ve identified six of the most common unintended consequences in sales. Believe me, there are a million more. Unintended consequences are costly to us. They are preventable if we take the time to stop and think where we are heading and frequently collaborate with the more experienced members on our team.

©2010 Scott R. Sheaffer

Related posts:

1. 8 Speed Traps in Sales
2. Are You Micromanaging Your Customers?
3. Sales Tips: Avoid this silent sales killer.

Tags: aggressive, closing, competition, cross-selling, questions

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