In the last blog, we talked about how setting expectations can derail your sales by making you appear too needy to your client.  This is the second in a series of how different traits of appearing needy can kill a deal even before you start.  Even if you have wiped your expectations slate clean before you meet with your client, if you carry the trait of talking too much, you can find yourself in the same boat – appearing needy…in need of making this sale!  There’s no bigger turn-off for most people than the proverbial used car salesman approach – bombard the client with so much information that he feels overwhelmed and backs off.

Unfortunately, perhaps, when we call on a client, we all have the same reason to be there, to make a sale.  Whether it’s a product or a service, we still have the objective of convincing the client to separate himself from some of his money.  He knows this, too.  So we’ve wiped clean the expectations slate as best we can, and we show up at the appointed time, talk a bit with the client (relationship building) and find that we have just what the customer is indicating that he needs.  And we know our product!  So the next step is to start the spiel, perhaps with a demonstration or power point display.  And, in the process, we begin to expound on the virtues of what it is we have to offer.  Now we have entered upon dangerous ground!

We know our product!  We know how we can help the client meet his need.  We may even think we know his needs better than he does.  And we begin to demonstrate that by expounding on the virtues of the product and the benefit he’ll realize by going with us instead of the competition.  In the process, our self need of feeling important in this deal begins to lead us down the wrong path.  That need to show off – to be the most important and or knowledgeable one in the room begins to come through in what we are saying, or in even more subtle ways, how we are saying it.  This is not the time to exhibit – in any way – that we want to be liked – that we want to appear smart or important.  This is the time to let the client carry most of the conversation.  You’ll have a better chance of closing the deal if you steer the client into carrying the conversation while you actively listen to what he is saying and actively try to sense what it is he is actually feeling.  Be sharp, be available, be aware, and, above all, be effective and professional.  Work to direct your talking to providing answers and solutions to the client’s situation without flooding him with a verbal flood of your product information and vast experience.  In short, be professional.  Do not appear needy.  If you keep your expectation slate clean and your talking like a stream and not a raging river, you’ll stand a much better chance of getting to the other side of making a deal, arm-in-arm with a happy client.

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