10 Cringy Things Salespeople Do and 7 Reasons Why They Do It

I’m back writing and working after completing the first four weeks of my recovery from quadruple bypass surgery.

Regardless of which recovery week I experienced, the common denominator was a lot of laying around, sleepless nights, daytime naps, and watching a ton of television.  If it occurred in the past four weeks, I not only saw it, I saw it over, and over, and over again.  Unfortunately, I saw some very cringe-worthy television.  Some lowlights before we get to the sales analogy:

• Representative Al Green who, instead of singing his hit song from the 70’s, “Let’s Stay Together,” led senators in a chorus of “We Will Overcome” as he was being censured for disrupting Trump’s Address to the Joint Sessions of Congress.  Cringy.
• 22 Democrat Senators recorded identical videos, reading and swearing from the same script, bashing Trump and Musk for not bringing down the price of eggs on day 1.  Egg prices (and gas prices, and inflation) are down considerably now but those videos were still very cringy.
• A handful of female Democrats recorded “choose your fighter” videos.  Extremely cringy.
• Trump and JD Vance got into an argument on live TV with Vladimir Zelensky before asking him and his delegation to leave the White House.  They have since signed the agreement and not only has Ukraine agreed to a cease-fire, word today is that Russia has as well, so the strategy may have been correct but it was still too cringy for live TV broadcast from the White House.
• There’s an unavoidable new ad for the Apple iPhone 16e which is as cringy as anything I already described.
• There are two new animated ads from Vanda Pharmaceutical (couldn’t find links) that are so cringy they make the dancing and singing in the Jardiance ads (the little blue pill with the big story to tell) seem normal.

But guess what?

Salespeople get cringy too.  I’d like to share what I believe are the ten things salespeople do to elicit cringy reactions from their prospects (data from Objective Management Group and their assessments of around 2.5 million salespeople:

1. During Cold calls where callers read a stupid, pitiful script instead of engaging prospects in conversations.  Hang up cringe.
2. During Discovery calls/meetings where salespeople ask, “What keeps you up at night?”  Cliche’ cringe.  Only 12% of salespeople have the Consultative Seller Competency as a strength and just 31% have the Value Seller Competency as a strength.  And the bottom 50%?  Only 2% have Consultative Seller as a strength and just 8% have Value Seller as a strength.
3. During Qualification when salespeople ask, “Are you the decision maker?” or “Who is the decision maker?” Lack of situational awareness cringe.
4. During Qualification when salespeople ask, “Do you have a budget?” or “How much is the budget?” Unforced error cringe.  Only 19% of salespeople have the Qualifier competency as a strength and only 4% of the bottom 50% have it as a strength!
5. When salespeople spend more than 30 seconds talking about their company, history, product line, capabilities and value proposition. Out of touch cringe.
6. When salespeople ask a question that gets their prospect to share, only to ignore the answer and transition to their next question.  Failure to listen cringe.
7. When salespeople talk relentlessly about themselves, despite the fact that it’s not about them.  Self-Centered cringe.
8. When salespeople don’t know how to properly end a call or meeting and the prospect ends it for them.  Disrespect cringe.
9. When salespeople don’t properly close, don’t get agreement on parameters for follow-up and end up annoying the hell out of their prospects.  Pest cringe.  Only 35% of salespeople have the Closer Competency as a strength and from the bottom 50%, only 18% have it as a strength.
10. Salespeople who call asking when leases and/or contracts will expire.  Nuisance cringe.  Only 39% of salespeople have the Hunter Competency as a strength and only 23% of the bottom 50% have it as a strength.

[Note – LinkedIn commenters added the following cringe that is worthy of being included in the list]

Cole Conner added: “Just following up.”

Marvin Garellek added: 1) “Overpromising and Underdelivering” and 2) “Saying ‘Yes, we can do that!’ to everything, even when they can’t — just to close the deal.”

Kelley Riggs added: 1) Salespeople who act like your best buddy in the first meeting, 2) salespeople who obnoxiously have an answer for everything, 3) salespeople who ask, “Do you have anything we can quote for you.”

 

In fairness, while the worst of this cringe comes from the bottom 50% of all salespeople, that’s still one of every two, which is completely unacceptable.  So who’s to blame?

There is much blame to go around, but these are my top 7 sources:

1. CEOs who trust their sales leaders to figure it out when they know that’s something isn’t right.
2. Sales Leaders who have such huge egos that they can’t admit they don’t know how to seriously improve the effectiveness of their sales teams.
3. Sales Managers who refuse to coach and when they do it’s completely ineffective.
4. Salespeople who don’t believe that their employment in professional sales requires similar education, training, apprenticeships, testing, practice and certifications that are standard in nearly every other profession.
5. Sales Trainers, some of whom suck just as badly as the salespeople they are training, and many more who aren’t training salespeople on a proper sales process, sales methodology, or listening and questioning skills.  Thank God there are a few dozen good ones!
6. The country club atmosphere at most companies where even salespeople who fail to meet quota are retained because of the devil you know.  In this article from mid-February, I wrote that 87% of companies said their salespeople were not meeting quota and that’s far worse than half!
7. Unwillingness of companies to invest as much money in developing, training and coaching salespeople as they spend on their sales tech stack, most of which is unused, ineffective and unnecessary.

Who do you call?  Ghostbusters would be my first answer, but it is not a practical solution for all that ails companies and their sales teams.  Reach out to us and we’ll help you grow both revenue and profit.  No company is too small, no company is too big.  No industry is new to us and no industry can’t be helped, regardless of what you’ve been told.

Check out some of the statistics of how salespeople score in 21 Sales Core Competencies, how your industry compares, and if you want, how your company compares by clicking here.

Finally, if less than 100% of your salespeople are meeting quota, know that it doesn’t have to be that way.  All of your salespeople can either be trained and coached up, or be replaced by someone who will meet or exceed quota.  It’s a simple decision, not a complicated initiative.

Original Image created by Grok