12 Lame Sales Excuses Salespeople Use and How To Respond

It is easy to allow your attitude to lapse into self-fulfilling negativity when you are a salesperson - after all, there is a lot of rejection, difficult people, unreasonable customers, and other potentially challenging situations that you have to deal with.

sales excuses If you ever find yourself using any of these excuses it is time for a healthy injection of a positive attitude because after all, these excuses are all comments made that reflect the salesperson's attitude.

12 Sales Excuses That the Best Salespeople Never Use:

1. The product sucks – why did you take the sales job if you didn’t believe in the product?

2. The price is too high – sell value not price, amateurs sell price

3. No time for prospecting – create time, plan ahead, stick to a schedule, ruthlessly eliminate time wasters

4. Goals are too high – Stay committed, sense of urgency, plan steps to achieve goals

5. Our competitors are better – see #1, do you know why and how to contrast to competitors? Are you buying into their p/r instead of believing in your company?

6. We do not get enough support – are you looking for someone else to do your work? Are these questions you should be able to answer? If not, go to the boss with details.

7. No one is buying now – create urgency and value, most companies have a budget and will make decisions if shown value

8. My product is a commodity – is it corn, oil, rocks, paper napkins – even with these basic products great salespeople will create value and differentiation

9. Can’t get an appointment – no rapport, trust, initial value communication, you are not interesting enough to talk to

10. Can’t get them to return my calls – see #9 and did you give them a reason to call you back?

11. Not enough people know about our products/run more ads – marketing and selling are two different things – have you closed every single opportunity in front of you?

12. All I need is more leads – closely related to #11 – cherry-picking is not high-level selling, be strategic, identify your best prospects and get to them by yourself, you cannot wait for them to find you.