Todd Duncan's Sales Mistake #2: Posing, part 1.

Todd Duncan, a pretty smart guy, and I took away many things in his book. This is specifically about sales, but since entrepreneurs are salespeople, they are words to live by. They help in everyday life, too.

He defines posing as "trying to sell before training to sell." (p. 17). He calls it "in the merciless worlds of sales...the equivalent of putting on on a clown suit and jumping into a corral with a two-thousand-pound rodeo bull." (p. 19)

He calls this "improvisational selling [p. 21]," and on pages 22-28 points to six ways to know if you are merely improvising:

1. False Confidence, such that "you never cultivate a genuine self-image."

2. Accidental Success, such that your results are never productive nor consistent."

3. Selling Reluctance, such that you "make a point to sell something you are really proud of selling."

4. Under performing Clients, "you...give them no reason to return to you or refer them to others."

5. Overworking: pursuing "a hit-and-miss approach to selling. If one costume doesn't work on the prospect, then you...try it on another." If not on that second on the third, and so on.

6. Job Turnover: "posing leads to short-lived sales positions."

This comes from Todd Duncan, Killing the Sale; the 10 Fatal Mistakes Salespeople make and how to avoid them. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004).

What do you think about this? Have you ever been guilty of it? I'm trying to create more skilled entrepreneurs. Do you think this helps?

This is some of the stuff that will go into my entrepreneurship course. The ideas in it supply the life's blood of my professional activities: teaching, writing, and real estate. For entrepreneurial real estate go to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog and for entrepreneurial writing to www.kearneymusicschoolmurders.blogspot/com.