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

Duncan rightly ascribes sales success to learning the language of your prospects. He says, "to do away with posing and close sales in an effective manner, you must communicate in the language that is most easily understood by your prospects and clients, and that language is trust." [p. 34]

On pages 34-6, Duncan identifies five traits that communicate trust:

1. Timeliness: Talk to people only when they expect you to do so.

2. Relevance: Talk to them only about what they care about.

3. Understanding: Understand their needs before you try to sell them something.

4. Sincerity: Treat your customers with respect.

5. Thoroughness: Cover all the bases. Don't make them wait for you to get back to them.

I would update Duncan by adding authenticity and permission. Authenticity in that your communication comes from your heart and is not put on. Permission, such that you have their permission to talk to them.

If you don't have their permission, ask for it. It's the basis of all successful interactions.

See 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 posing? 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 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.

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.