Every salesperson makes mistakes early in their careers. The successful ones identify their most critical mistakes and eliminate them from their sales interviews. Unfortunately, some never do. Although their approaches may vary widely, among the ten most common salesperson pitfalls are:

Too many sales people monopolize the time they have in front of a prospect with their talk, only allowing the prospect to listen (whether or not it's interesting.) For every hour they spend only five minutes selling their product or service and 55 minutes buying it back. Result: no order, canceled order, or "think it over." The 80-20 rule (80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients) applies to selling also.

Salespeople seem to have all the solutions. In fact, most companies are no longer in the business of selling products, but instead are now in the business of providing solutions. The only thing wrong with this is that too many salespeople try to sell the prospect the solution before they even understand the problem. If salespeople were held accountable for their solutions, as doctors are for their diagnosis, then they would be forced to examine the problem thoroughly before proposing a cure at the risk of malpractice. The salesperson must ask questions up front to insure a complete understanding of the prospect's perspective.

When a customer makes a statement such as "your price is too high," salespeople go automatically into a defensive mode. Often they begin a speech on a quality or value. If a customer can get a discount by making a statement he shouldn't buy yet until he tries something more powerful to get even a better price. "Your price is too high" is not a question? It does not require an answer.

 4. THEY FAIL TO ESTABLISH THE PROSPECT'S BUYING CRITERIA OR BUDGET.

How can the salesperson possibly propose a solution without knowing the prospect's priorities or problems. Asking a naturally flowing, series of elaborate and evaluative questions serves to clarify the prospect's real needs. Knowing early whether there is money planned for a project will help the salesperson to distinguish between the prospect who is ready to solve a problem and one who may not be serious about it. The amount of money that the prospect considers investing to solve a problem will help determine whether a solution is feasible, and if so, what approach will match the prospect's ability to pay.

According to a 2005 survey by Sales and Marketing magazine 75% of all sales people do not spend the proper amount of time preparing for a sales call. 

The modern sales person needs new eyes, which come from training, in order to overcome the mistakes of word of mouth selling ideas. 

Whether it is a stubborn attitude to turn every prospect into a customer or ignorance of the fact that the sale is truly dead, too much time is spent on chasing accounts that don't qualify for a product or service. This should have been detected far earlier in the process.

Salespeople are often too willing to jump at the opportunity to demonstrate their product or service. They miss their true goal of making a sale and become educators; often to merely teach their prospects enough to help them buy it from a competitor.

Building rapport is absolutely necessary and desirable, but all too often the small talk doesn't end and the sale doesn't begin. Unfortunately the prospect usually recognizes this before the salesperson. The result is the salesperson is back on the street wondering how he or she did with that prospect.

Prospects are constantly ending the sales interview with the ever-so-prevalent "think it over" line. The salesperson accepts this indecision and even sympathizes with the prospect. It's easier to bring back the message to the sales manager that the prospects may buy in the future, rather than saying, this prospect is not a candidate for the product or service.  After all, wasn't it the sales person's responsibility to go out and get prospect's to say "yes?" Getting the prospect to say "no" can also produce feelings of personal rejection or failure.

Salespeople don't view their time with a prospect as being spent conducting an interview to see if the prospect qualifies to do business with their company. All too often a prospect really remains a suspect and never gets to the more qualified level of the prospect, or customer. A doctor uses various instruments to conduct an examination of the patient. The salesperson should view questions as the equivalent to the doctor's instruments , and conduct his or her examination of the prospect.

Salespeople find themselves ad-libbing or "going with the flow" to make the sale. They allow the prospect to control the selling process. Salespeople often leave the sales call without knowing where they are because they don't know what is the next step necessary to close the sale.

A sales strategy, that is in a book or a training program, will double your effectiveness if you know the 3 rules for implementation. If  you do not know the rules, then like most people the ideas end up on a bookshelf instead of increasing your income.

David Reynolds is a former sales training consultant with DALE CARNEGIE TRAINING®, the international leader in business skills development. He is based in Columbia, MO 

Read the Rules of Success if you want to know more about how to be more effective in the coming year.