The hidden, crippling damage of bad sales practices

You can make a spreadsheet say anything right?

You can hire people to make 100 dials a day, call prospects five times a week, push push push and make the numbers work out.  With enough activity they’ll get enough appointments, close enough deals, to help you make your number.  Manage to the expectations in your spreadsheet model and everything will be fine.

Except….

Those reps may be calling too much, too often, pissing off prospects who now will never buy from you.  Your brand is now associated with high-pressure sales reps, not anything to do with the value your product or service provides.

Your reps may be pitching product instead of communicating something of value, wasting the prospect’s time vs. sharing something worth paying for.  Multiply that by constant emails & voicemails that never stop and you’re in trouble.

When your prospects recognize the phone number or area code every day, even without any interaction (or voicemail left), those passive interactions reinforce your growing, damaging brand value.

Your reps may be receiving direct, negative feedback on their tactics, but they sure aren’t sharing that feedback with you.  That’ll make them look bad so they ignore it, delete it.  You never see it.

If two percent of your prospects convert, that means 98 percent don’t.  And among those 98 percent, how many will never do business with you again?  How many will tell their colleagues and peers about the experience?  How many will forward that horrible email to their teammates, blog about it, tweet about it, talk about it?

How many will get promoted to manager, then director, then VP and beyond – and remember how you treated them?

The negative, long-term impact of bad sales practices is difficult to isolate and measure.  But it’s there.  And I guarantee that your future spreadsheets will suffer for it without attention and course correction.