Last nights The Apprentice provided some excellent sales lessons - things not to do when selling! Despite brash claims such as being “the greatest sales people in Europe” the candidates on The Apprentice are generally are not very good salespeople. While I’m now sales guru and I freely admit to hating cold calling as a small business owner I’d had to do my fair share of selling and I’ve learned a thing or two about it along the way.

So here’s some of the mistakes I think they made

1. They were lacking persistence. When it comes to cold calling persistence is key, you have to keep calling and calling.
2. If you’ve got two sales team and eight possible appointments the number of appointments you should set is sixteen six is just not enough, two is downright poor.
3. Once you’ve made the appointment or sale, stop selling! I’ve seen lots of sales won and then subsequently lost because the salesperson kept selling.
4. Qualify your leads. There’s no point trying to sell ice cream to a shop that makes their own, yes sometimes you can make these sales but they tend to be very hard work, go for the easy, low hanging fruit instead, especially if time is an issue.
5. Sell to the right person. Make sure you’re pitching to someone who has the authority to buy, don’t pitch to anyone else unless it’s the only way you can get to see the decision maker.
6. Don’t enter into a one sided negotiation. Last night they gave away exclusivity without being asked, far to many sales people start giving things away in the desperate attempt to make the sale. As a buyer I love this, I can stand there with my mouth shut and arms crossed and the salesperson will just keep dropping the price.
7. In a negotiation each side should give something, if they want exclusivity (or anything else for that matter) make sure you get something in return, perhaps a large guaranteed minimum order.
8. Sometimes you have to say no to customers. Although it’s a bit unrealistic to expect the candidates to do that in the artificial environment that is The Apprentice.

Gavin Ingham has a good write-up complete with his sales tips on his blog post The Sales Apprentice: Sales training and business tips from the hit TV show, part V.

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