Todd Duncan's Sales Mistake #7: Gambling

Todd Duncan, on p.123 of Killing the Sale; the 10 Fatal Mistakes Salespeople Make and How to Avoid Them (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2004), as "Making unplanned calls on unknown customers."

Duncan gives these rules for prospecting (see p. 133)

1. Never make a call on prospects who don't know you're going to call on them.

2. When you make the call, make sure they're excited to have you call on them.

3. Never leave a call without adding more value than you received.

Duncan lists four "fundamentals" of productive prospecting (see pp. 135-140):

1. Consistently sew a common thread, that is, "by far the best method is via a referral call from someone whom both you and the prospect know."

2. Regularly stretch client satisfaction.

3. Get out more.

4. Take your focus off selling.

Check out his book. These are good rules to go by.

Duncan doesn't mention the Internet anywhere in his book. That's because the principles of salesmanship persist regardless of technology. The Internet makes it easier to follow these goals, if people would just do that.

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