14 ways to completely bomb a B2B sales call

This is Bob.

Bob is the worst B2B salesman to ever exist.

You don’t know this. You recently partnered with Bob to help land more B2B enterprise clients.

You see, Bob has a very special gift. No matter how far away you are geographically, Bob has an innate ability to make the skin crawl of any person.

Bob is an expert at pissing prospects off and losing deals.

14 ways to be like Bob (please don’t):

1. Interrupt at every opportunity

2. Skim over asking clarifying questions to understand the what, why, when, how, where, and who of their current situation. Instead, jump straight to asking who approves proposals in the business

3. Keep saying ‘can you see my screen’ periodically throughout (at least 3 times)

4. Highlight your team’s weaknesses and downplay relevant strengths

5. When the prospect asks ‘have you got any similar case studies?’ chuckle arrogantly and say ‘I’ve got case studies. Have YOU got case studies?’ (don’t prepare any, for good measure)

6. Mention you have no customer support as the product is perfect

7. Hand wave any talk of ‘data security’ or ‘controls’. Eye roll if needed

8. Don’t say hello. Just immediately say ‘let’s cut to the chase. What’s your budget?’ as soon as they join. Don’t ease into the call at all

9. Don’t prepare any demo screens tailored to their needs (and definitely don’t ask their needs before), and when pushed, simply kick the can down the road and repeat ‘we’ll touch base with you on that next week’

10. Don’t show how you work, your slack channel, or live examples of successful users / customers. Just say ‘trust me, this is good’ with no evidence or visual example of live completed projects, your live work, or a happy customer story

11. If they try to negotiate pricing, just say ‘get out of my kitchen’ Gordon Ramsay style. Do NOT be flexible or offer a demo environment / small PoC to build trust

12. Make your pricing and license cost structure as complex as possible, with an incomprehensible amount of factors that could wildly impact the monthly fee. And make sure to include dozens of (undiscussed) add-ons in the proposal

13. Say you have zero experience in their industry and don’t intend to start today

14. Don’t send a follow up email with answers to outstanding questions / next steps. Instead, try to upsell them immediately by booking a follow up call titled ‘cash cow’

You may be feeling confused. Why would I write this?

It’s simple - do the complete opposite of the above to run a good B2B sales call.

Happy days!

Want to share your worst B2B sales tips? Book a call: cal.com/jmoloney/chat