Todd Duncan's Sales Mistake #6: Arguing

Todd Duncan says that "arguing," which he defines on page 103 as "Selling your product before knowing your customer," is a mistake. See Killing the Sale; the 10 Fatal Mistakes Salespeople Make and How to Avoid Them. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004).

He means trying to sell something to people before you have gotten their trust. Duncan, on pp. 117-120, points to 5 practices which help to establish trust:

1. Forget about the sale. Put the sale on the back burner and listen to your customer so you can focus on what he or she really needs.

2. Ask, don't argue. Concentrate on asking the right questions.

3. Listen with your fingers. Take notes.

4. Seek to understand. Verify what people tell you. Ask second or third questions until you understand.

5. Listen again. Review your notes and think again what people are telling you as you go along.

He says forget about trying to impose an agenda and genuinely listen to what is really needed and wanted in a situation. (p. 117)

What do you think about this? Have you ever been guilty of arguing? 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.

Todd Duncan's 10 Fatal Selling Errors

Todd Duncan, in Killing the Sale; the 10 Fatal Mistakes Salespeople Make and How to Avoid Them. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004), lays out 10 basic selling errors. Entrepreneurs should recognize them so they don't do them.

Here they are:

1. Hyping: "Relying on 'You can do it' propaganda to maintain your sales motivation.' (p.1)

2. Posing: "Trying to sell before training to sell." (p. 17)

3. Tinkering: "Treating the symptoms but not the sickness of poor selling efforts." (p. 39)

4. Moonlighting: Buliding a business-based life instead of a life-based busines. (p. 61)

5. Muscling: Taking Lone Ranger actions instead of using team-connected strategies. (p. 83)

6. Arguing: Selling your product before knowing your customer. (p. 103)

7. Gambling: Making unplanned calls on unknown customers. (p. 123)

8. Begging: Seeking your customers' business before earning your customers' trust. (p. 141)

9. Skimming: Focusing of surface profitability instead of client satisfaction. (p. 159)

10. Stagnating: Losing your sales edge by neglecting your growth curve. (p. 181)

There's not one salesman who hasn't been guilty of none of these. All of us have done every one of them at one point in time.

The key is to keep them in your mind and recognize them when you're either doing them or contemplating on doing them.

But if you recognize your core values and act according to them as often as possible, you'll maximize your chances of never doing any of them.

I'm going to go over each one in subsequent posts. Entrepreneurship is a sales business. Need I say more?

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 material comes from 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.