I am going to spend the next 2 weeks talking smack about many of the pearls of wisdom that so many sales organizations hold sacred.  Why?  Because they simply don’t work and they interfere with  your success.  Some of these “truisms” may have worked at some point in history, but that time has long since passed.  They stay alive because they keep getting passed down from one sales “professional” to another as supposed bits of wisdom.  It wouldn’t be so bad if they were just harmless little sayings like “keep your chin up” or other conversational fodder that has no real meaning.

The problem is that these myths are a lot like STD’s; you thought you were just having some fun but look at what you are left with.  Pain, suffering and embarrassment.

As a career sales executive, sales consultant, sales trainer and speaker, I have come across  just about every variation of a sales organization there is.  One common theme I find in failing sales organizations (or failing sales individuals) is an adherence to many of the myths that I will discuss over the next 2 weeks.

One thing I always do at the beginning of any speaking engagement is show a photo of an old cell phone; you know, the early stage cell phones that were as big as a loaf of garlic bread and emitted enough heat from the battery to warm a cup of coffee (if you don’t know what I am talking about ask an older friend or colleague who worked back in the early 90’s).  I then ask  if they still use this type of phone.  Everyone, of course says “no”.  I then ask them “why?”  If it was good enough for those days, then why don’t we use it today?

The answers are that it is obsolete and that better, smaller, more efficient and feature rich cell phones are available today.  I then go through a series of items which we no longer use or enjoy anymore, all of which originated out of the late 80’s or early 90’s.  Everyone categorically condemns them as archaic.

I then go through the sales myths which I will discuss in the next 2 weeks, but I don’t initially talk about them as sales myths.  I introduce them as “sales strategies” and ask  the audience if they believe in and utilize these strategies.  Those who are honest raise their hands.  I go on to point out that each of these myths had its origin in the late 80’s and early 90’s from the sales books de jour at the time.  It’s too much to go into in a blog post, but trust me when I tell you that each of these myths can be traced back to an extremely popular book or business fad at the time.

So what are these myths?  Let’s take a look at some of them we will be discussing in the coming 2 weeks:

• “Always be Closing”
• “People buy from people they like”
• “Sales is a numbers game”
• “Objections are buying signals”
• “Our sales cycle is X” (X being the number of weeks or months it supposedly takes to close a sale)

If you believe any of these are true, check back frequently over the next two weeks as I categorically prove each of them to not only be false, but also harmful to your success.