We've all heard the term KISS at one time or another - "Keep It 
Simple, Stupid." However, the majority of salespeople violate 
this basic principle more often than not.

Let me start with some examples of what I'm talking about. At one 
position I held, I sat next to someone who could have been a top 
salesperson. He and I both operated much the same in that rather 
than cold call, we ran our own personal marketing programs to 
generate leads and simply took the calls that came in as a 
result. The problem is what he did with the calls. When someone 
called me, ready to buy, I immediately went into closing the deal 
and making arrangements to either come out with the paperwork or 
to fax it over. He, on the other hand, went into a full-length 
company story and a lot of other information that he absolutely 
should not tell a qualified prospect unless they ask for it. The 
end result is that people who called ready to sign up for one 
of our services lost interest and didn't buy anything at all.

Another example is what happens every time I try to make a 
business purchase. Here I am, saying "Yes, I'm going to buy," and 
the sales rep lauches into a company story about how long they've 
been in business, who their big clients are, and on and on. Lucky 
for these salespeople, the product usually sells itself and I 
still buy. However, I'm willing to bet that a lot of people 
don't. Nothing is more frustrating than picking up the phone 
saying, "Hi, here I am ready to buy," and having some rep go into 
a story bragging about how great the company is and all that they 
can do. That comes off as pure arrogance to a business owner. 
What's more, talking about your big enterprise clients alienates 
most small business owners. They assume their needs will be 
placed second to those of the big dogs and that they'll be 
treated as just a number when calling for service.

I think most training is at the root of this massive problem. 
Every course I've taken has gone through the steps of a sale. 
The problem is, what if all the steps don't take place? Consider 
"objection handling." When I was working for that company I 
mentioned earlier, many of my prospects had no objections because 
my marketing pieces took care of them in advance. By assuming 
that each of these steps are going to take place, a lot of 
salespeople will cause something to happen when it really 
shouldn't have to begin with. If a prospect doesn't come up 
with any major objections, don't give them a reason to!

I've seen a lot of managers require their reps to fill out a 
"lead sheet" that documents each step of the sale. This assumes 
that each of the steps will happen when they may not. If you're 
required to maintain these types of records, skip anything that 
doesn't happen naturally. Don't induce a prospect to enter a 
selling phase that may not only be unnecessary, but may cause 
you to lose the sale entirely.

Use the KISS test when you're selling. Always ask yourself if 
what you're doing is actually necessary. Believe me, you'll save 
yourself a lot of wasted time and lost sales by doing so. I did. 

Frank Rumbauskas is the author of Cold Calling Is a Waste of 
Time: Sales Success in the Information Age. He is the founder 
of FJR Advisors LLC, which publishes training materials on 
generating business without cold calling. For more information, 
please visit  http://www.nevercoldcall.com