It doesn’t take much to be perceived as ‘salesy’

A poorly-timed question, over-confidence, or a little too much enthusiasm can sour your prospect on you. Being perceived as ‘salesy’ can create obstacles to winning the engagement. Fortunately, it’s easy to avoid being ‘salesy.’ Simply, avoid creating sales pressure.

Sales pressure (or selling pressure) is often the result of manipulative tricks designed to increase the pace of the sales cycle. It is that uncomfortable feeling that buyers get when they feel manipulated, not heard, or pressured. ‘I feel like I was being sold’ is a sure sign that the prospect experienced sales pressure.

Avoid creating sales pressure by learning these common mistakes to avoid.

1. Asking too many discovery questions

While discovery questions are necessary, too many questions can feel overwhelming, especially if they are asked in rapid succession. The tone of your questioning is also important.

You want to avoid the prospect feeling interrogated by the questioning. Discovery conversations should be balanced and interactive. You should listen more than you ask and watch for signs that the prospect is growing uncomfortable. Avoid asking questions that are too intimate for the level of your relationship.

2. Using leading questions

Leading questions are used to incrementally establish a position that is difficult for the prospect to reverse.

It is a question that prompts or encourages a desired answer, often several questions strung together to get a desired result. Once the prospect senses the path of the leading question, it creates a sense of manipulation. Even if you are successful, prospects will resent feeling cornered and manipulated. Avoid using leading questions.

3. Asking to meet with higher ups too early

It may be necessary to include superiors in your discussions. However, asking to meet with them too early in the relationship or before the prospect trusts you will create sales pressure. Let the prospect initiate introductions to others in the company.

4. Contacting too frequently

Persistence is a quality of the best sales people. However, dogged persistence creates sales pressure and feels ‘salesy’. The frequency of contact you make with your prospect can influence their perception of you. Contacts made too frequently can create an impression that you are not busy or not in demand.

It may even create the erroneous perception that you are desperate for work.

5. Demanding tight deadlines

Prospects have their own schedules for the time it takes to make decisions. As much as we’d like to think that setting a deadline for the prospect is helpful, prospects are not on your schedule to get you the information you need to sell them. Arbitrary deadlines create pressure. Instead, ask how much time they need before you should reach out again. Let them set the pace of the conversation rather than you.

6. Asking the wrong ‘Why’ questions

Be careful when asking ‘why’ questions. Why questions tend to examine the rationale of decisions. They can carry the implication of personal responsibility that is not helpful in a sales discussion. It may be important to understand why a decision was made or why a course of action was taken. But when so, couch the question as a decision by the company rather than the individual. Ask “Why did the company decide not to include consultants in its training program?” rather than “why did you decide not to use consultants in your training program?”

Fortunately, most lawyers don’t come off as ‘salesy’. But you don’t have to be a salesy type to make these mistakes. Be careful about the sales pressure you are creating in your conversations. Reducing sales pressure can help you build relationships and trust more quickly. And that will lead to new engagements.

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The former chief marketing officer of several large law firms, Eric Dewey is a business development coach for lawyers who has been helping lawyers and other professional service providers win new business for more than 25 years. His approach is practical, client-centric and practice-specific, using tools and techniques developed over years of coaching lawyers from every imaginable practice area through a host of challenging situations.

Eric is the instructor-coach on eLegaltraining.com and has coached and advised hundreds of lawyers over his career on practice development, client account strategy, and opportunities research. He can be reached at 502.693.4731 or by email at Eric@eLegalTraining.com.