Why do I Receive Contradicting Sales Advice?

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Contradicting Sales Advice

Why do I Receive Contradicting Sales Advice?

When someone first begins learning how to sell, it is not uncommon for them to hear a lot of contradicting sales advice. All your co-workers are so willing to help, your manager tells you what to do, you have meetings with higher management and they tell you what to do, you read a book to learn what to do, then you watch YouTube videos to find out what to do, then you just end up confused. Everyone is saying different things and everyone believes that their way is the right way. Whats up with that?

The confusion can be difficult and stressful. You’re not selling well and everyone wants to argue about what you should and should not do. In this article we are going to discuss why this happens and what to do about it. Don’t worry, I will contradict everyone else, but my advice actually works.

 

Reasons for Contradicting Sales Advice

Here are some major reasons why this happens.

 

Everyone Has Different Personalities.

Being true to your personality is extremely important in sales. The more authentic you are, the better you sell. Some people are naturally more energetic and can pull off those vibes. Some people are more serious and can naturally pull off the serious vibe. When a person with a serious personality tries to act all energetic and giggly, they will stop being authentic and it will hurt their sales. You need to find your personality, and through experience you will be able to adapt a sales style that fits your personality type. Just because something works for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you.

 

Sales Training Has Evolved.

A lot of sales training that is taught today is more than 50 years old. The stuff taught then might have worked then, but it doesn’t work today. A serious problem that exists is that many people take this old and outdated sales training and repackage it then present it as new information. It can be difficult to know what really works in today’s market and what is old and outdated sales training. You need to find sales advice that is modern and not based on the old school style. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t learn everything, but you need to understand that things have changed.

 

There are different types of sales.

Someone working directly with a customer will use different techniques than a copywriter will use. A copywriter will use different techniques than a marketer will use. A marketer will use different techniques than a CEO determining the price of a product. Everyone wants the product to be sold, but their perspective is very different and their goals are very different. So a sales person doesn’t need to understand pricing or choosing a demographic/customer avatar. They need to understand human interaction. While a copywriter doesn’t need to understand human interaction, they need to understand psychology of persuasion and influence. Yet, both of these skills sets will be labeled and taught as sales.

 

Your Advice Givers May Not Even Understand.

Most sales people are taught sales from co-workers and managers. However, most managers and your co-workers don’t even know how to sell. They might do a few things well enough to not lose their job, but they probably don’t know what works and what doesn’t. They are lucky that they do a few things right. Most sales people are average, and most average sales people are not very good. This very well might be why you receive contradicting sales advice, because someone believes that it works and someone else believes that it doesn’t work. The truth is that both of the advice givers are clueless.

 

The Most Common Contradicting Advice

If you receive contradicting advice, the chances are high that this is what is happening. This is where I contradict everyone, but don’t worry, you can trust me. You are most likely having people tell you to say something or not to say something. It comes down to the words you are using. Almost all contradicting advice has to do with how you say something.

The words you say do not affect the sale.

It does not matter if you say it one way or another. It doesn’t matter if you said something wrong. It doesn’t matter if you said it in a persuasive way. Nothing you say matters. The words you use do not matter. yet, this is what most sales advice is centered around. There are other skills required to sell, and speaking correctly is not one of the top skills. Learning how to speak correctly does not hurt, but this is not the top sales skills to learn. Go tell that to your manager that wants to force you to read a script word for word.

 

How To Overcome Contradicting Advice

Here are some great ways to overcome this problem.

 

Understanding the Problem.

Why do your co-workers give you advice? Why does your manager tell you what to do? It’s easy to answer this. You’re not producing. If you were the top sales person, they wouldn’t tell you what to do. They would tell you to keep doing what you’re doing. So, the issue is that you’re not selling, or you’re asking for advice. The easiest way to stop unrequested advice is by producing. Start selling and stop asking advice from average sales people.

 

Ignoring Bad Advice

You will need to break out of your current situation. If you keep trying to satisfy everyone, you’ll never begin to sell. You need to start ignoring the advice given and start being true to your personality and focusing on the sales skills that actually make you better at selling. As a side note, building confidence is important because it’s hard to ignore people and stay true to yourself without sufficient confidence. You can learn more about building confidence by clicking this sentence.

 

Correcting Your Focus

You have probably noticed that I have said several times to focus on the skills that are most important. Saying the right words can be helpful, but it’s not the most important skill. You should be focusing on developing amazing time-management skills. You should focus on developing strong qualification skills. You should focus on learning how to develop rapport and generally having good social skills. These skills are way more important than accidentally saying the wrong word. Once you shift your focus from saying the right things to these other areas, you will start to produce. Once you produce you will not need to ask for advice. All the contradictions will disappear.

 

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