4 outdated sales styles you definitely need to kick to the curb

Nobody likes a pushy salesperson these days, according to author and business coach Milton Collins. In this extract from his book, Delight Disrupt Deliver, he shares the top four outdated sales styles that businesses should really avoid in the modern marketing landscape. 

Most people squirm when they hear the word ‘sales’. They think of the hideous sleazy salespeople who try to manipulate, coerce or force people to buy. And we all know how much we detest those types!

You know the type, the one that holds you hostage and requires a direct and firm ‘no way’ to get the point.

No one likes overly pushy salespeople.

Let’s take a look at four of the most common.

4 outdated sales styles you need to avoid

1. The Order-Taker

Order-takers just literally take orders. They take your order and then they don’t try to do anything else. They don’t ask any questions, they simply just do the very basics.

That’s cool, if someone wants to buy a sandwich quickly. But there’s so much more they could be doing – introducing other items, building a good relationship so customers will return.

Order-takers just do the order. They take a sale and do the minimum paperwork. They haven’t discussed anything else or offered any other benefits. They are coasters. Just coasting along not offering anything special.

2. The Overseller

They promise the world and deliver less. That is the worst thing to do because you need to be over-delivering rather than over-selling.

The overseller often just loves making the sale as an adrenaline rush not as a genuine service. They can also be known as The-Sell-Anything-to-Anyone-at-Anytime Type.

They promise everything and often get shocked as to why people feel let down when ‘they gave them such a good deal’. They often love money and status. Sales is their passion but they’ve got to learn emotional intelligence.

3. The Product Pusher

Product pushers are pushy and annoying. They talk about the product and want to push it regardless of whether it’s a right fit for the customer or not.

They think in terms of short-term sales or KPIs rather than long-term customer satisfaction. Sure, they are happy to door-knock or cold call but they often fail to listen to the customer’s objections and take their ‘no thank you’ seriously.

They’ll be the type that keeps calling you even if you’ve said ‘no’ three times to their face. They care about how many items they sell, not the people they sell to.

4. The Over-Stater

Then you’ve got the salespeople who don’t listen to their clients because they just love hearing their own voice.

They love over-stating why you should buy from them. They love spruiking about who uses their product or service. They don’t listen to the person, they tell people about themselves. It’s all about them, their product, how good they are, or how good their services are.

But they’re not listening to what the client needs. They are over-stating their value and under-stating the customers’ value. They often name drop and assume you’re interested in status.

The key to successful sales is about building trust, it’s about providing solutions, it’s not about how to sell it, it’s not about the money.

If you’re proud of your product and you know it’s good, you don’t need to do a hard sell. Be proud of building relationships. If you build the relationship, they’ll come back time and again.

That’s how you disrupt things, too – people come to you and then they refer their friends and associates. And that referral is far better than any sale because somebody else told them how good you are, how good your product is.

That’s what selling really should be. That’s what clever salespeople do. They don’t just flog products or push too hard. They build genuine relationships and offer solutions. They build a brand the people can trust and want to be a part of.

This post was originally published in 2023 and appeared on Kochie’s Business Builders. You can read the original here.

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