Sales Failure 2!! Katie tries to sell Social Media services …. and fails!!

By Andy Preston | General Sales Tips

Mar 18


In this edition of the ‘Sales Failure!’ series, leading Sales Expert Andy Preston takes real-life examples of ineffective selling, and uses them as tools to learn how you can avoid the same mistakes, and what to do instead to improve your own sales results….

In this edition of ‘Sales Failure’ we take the example of Katie (real name withheld to protect the ‘guilty party’ from further embarrassment).

Katie attempted to ‘sell’ me her company’s Social Media services via LinkedIn recently, and this serves as a useful example to dissect her approach, and examine the lessons you can learn from it, in order to improve your own sales approaches and increase your sales!

So first of all, let’s take a look at Katie’s LinkedIn message ‘pitch’….

‘Hi Andy

If I could win you more client through Social Media would you want to chat?

Katie x’

Okay, so let’s dissect Katie’s approach….

Now, selling over LinkedIn isn’t easy, as I teach in my course on the subject, but there are various sales lessons we can take from Katie’s poor approach here (aside from her spelling mistake, but I’m letting that go for now)……

Sales Failure Lesson No 1 – Lack Of Research

Here’s where Katie fails….. she fails to do any research on me or my company WHATSOEVER, and then sets herself up for Sales Failure!


Unless you’re making over 200 calls per day, if you’re going to make a sales approach via ANY means, make sure you do some research on your potential prospect first!

This doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out affair – a quick look around their website or social media profiles will give you enough of an idea of your ‘angle’ to go in with.  Sales pitches with an ‘angle’ are far more likely to get someone’s interest than a general approach.

If Katie had bothered to do some research here, she would have come across some interesting figures….

At the time of writing this article, she currently has 618 ‘likes’ for her company on Facebook.
I have 2,802.

She currently has 8 testimonials on LinkedIn.
I have 233.

She currently has 1,669 followers for her company on Twitter.
I have 19,603

Does anyone else see a problem with her trying to sell me Social Media services here?!!

The big problem is she’s trying to sell me services in an area that I’m positioned far better than her!  Now I’m not saying that it should be ME teaching HER Social Media (although that would have been a funny response to her message!), but I’m saying that she needs to approach this one carefully.

This is all research she could have done from my LinkedIn profile BEFORE she contacted me, and found an ‘angle’ that would have had a far greater degree of success than the one she chose!

Sales Failure Lesson No 2 – A Generic Approach

Here’s where Katie fails….. she doesn’t personalise her message enough!

Katie then compounds her first mistake by making it a very generic approach.  Now I don’t know about you, but it looks very much like a ‘cut and paste’ email to me, even though she’s put my name at the top.

My guess is that this same message has gone out to a number of people, and she’s just changing the name on each one.  The problem is, that’s an obvious approach and it will cost her sales!

One of the keys of selling effectively over Social Media is to make your communication personal, not generic!  Recipients don’t want to feel like they’re just a ‘number’, they want to be treated as individuals.  If you fail to do this, your chances of selling via Social Media are very much limited.

And don’t forget, this message is coming from someone trying to SELL Social Media services here, so she actually demonstrates her lack of knowledge and awareness of her supposed area of specialty in her sales approach!  Not good.

Sales Failure Lesson No 3 – Closing Too Soon!

Here’s where Katie fails….. she hasn’t ‘warmed up’ her prospect!

Let’s look at the sales situation here.  This is a ‘first approach’ – the first message I’d got from this person.  There was no ‘warm up’ of initial emails, messages or conversations of any kind.

There was no questioning prior to this email, no research (as illustrated in Lesson 1 above), and nothing at all before the message ‘if we can do xyz for you, would you want to chat’.

Quite frankly as a sales approach, that stinks.

That has a negative impact on prospects, and you might as well be saying to them ‘you know, I can’t be bothered asking any questions, taking any interest in your company at all, or doing any of the hard work, so I’m just going to get straight down to my closing question’.

In order to influence other people, you need as much rapport as possible.  How much rapport did she have with me by coming straight out with that question in her first approach?  None whatsoever.  Poor.

Sales Failure Lesson No 4 – Over-Familiarity!

Here’s where Katie fails….. she’s far too ‘over-familiar’ with her prospect in her first message!

Now this is something you have to watch over email and Social Media.  Because there isn’t ‘human communication’ like there is face-to-face or over the phone, it’s much more difficult to read emotions and understand meaning.

This is meant to be an introductory message, introducing me to her and her company, what they do, and trying to give me a professional opinion of them and their credibility.

And she puts a kiss on the end of her message?!!!!!

While that might be suitable for her friends, or for people she knows really well, do you think it’s suitable for professional business communication here, particularly on a ‘first approach’ message?

Out of the 10 people I’d shown the message to before writing this article, every one of them thought it was inappropriate.

Now if you’ve been to any of my seminars, trained with me, or heard me speak at an event, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of ‘eradicating’ anything in your sales approach that is likely to put people off you early in the sales process.

If even 2 or 3 of them had given negative feedback, I’d be advocating eradicating it from your sales approach, let alone all 10!  That kind of feedback was enough for me to advise you to be very careful of over-familiarity.

It might be something she just naturally does.  It might be something that she’s just used to doing.  But it’s getting a negative reaction from people, so you need to be careful of it.  At best it’s showing her naivety and lack of experience – exactly the opposite of what you want to do when you’re trying to persuade someone to buy from you!

Sales Failure Lesson No 5 – Compliment To Gain Rapport!

Here’s where Katie fails….. she misses a HUGE opportunity to gain rapport!

Katie missed a huge trick here.  One of the ways to gain fast rapport with someone is to SINCERELY compliment them on something that they’ve done that is impressive, or you find interesting.

As a salesperson, one of my favourite things to do while waiting in reception  for meetings with prospects, was to read their company literature, awards and press cuttings while waiting for my prospect to arrive.

That usually gave me 3 or 4 things to ask about, or compliment the person on, let alone anything I got off the website!  Which meant the start to my meetings were easy, and I had huge rapport when I started to talk about MY products and services – which gave me far more chance of winning the business!

Taking that same approach into the Social Media field, in this example the first thing Katie could have done was compliment me on the number of followers/fans/testimonials I have.  From a ‘sales persuasion’ point of view, that would have been an easy way to deal with the fact that she has far fewer ‘numbers’ than me, and would have got rid of the major objection whilst raising rapport at the same time!

It was absolutely CRIMINAL not to do that.  Make sure you learn from that!

The crazy thing is, I was actually in the market to buy some Social Media support when Katie approached me.  I already see the value in Social Media.  I already get good business from it.  How difficult would I have been to close at that moment?  Not very!!

Yet she failed to even gain any knowledge or understanding of that, and her sales opportunity was over, even before it really started.

So, In Summary….

You can see that with all the areas that Katie has made mistakes in that have led to his ‘Sales Failure’. Think about them when you’re conducting your own ‘new business’ sales efforts, whether that’s over the phone, face-to-face, or online. Then think about what you can do to improve them.. and of course, drop me a line here if you’re struggling! Good luck with your Sales!

Follow the tips above and watch your sales soar! I look forward to hearing how you get on……..

About The Author:

Andy Preston is a leading Sales Expert, Trainer and Motivational Speaker

You can get Andy’s free cold calling and sales tips HERE

This article is copyright Andy Preston 2012. To copy or syndicate this or any part of this article contact Andy Preston for guidelines. Media enquiries – details here
Andy Preston
Follow Me

Andy Preston

Sales Motivational Speaker and Sales Trainer at Andy Preston
Andy Preston is a top International Sales Motivational Speaker, Sales Influencer and Master Sales Trainer.

Named as one of the World's Top Sales Gurus, Andy creates 'Stand Out Salespeople' worldwide, with his revolutionary 'Stand Out Selling' Sales System. 'Stand Out Selling' helps salespeople stand out from their competition, win more business, and do so at higher prices!

Previously a trained Professional Buyer, then the Top Salesperson in the UK, Andy Preston has now trained more than 160,000 Salespeople, in more than 50 countries, on 6 continents, since 2004!

Andy is best known for his work in 5 specific areas...

1) Prospecting/Cold Calling/Business Development
2) Converting Incoming Sales Leads
3) Becoming The 'Stand Out' Trusted Advisor
4) Standing Out From The Competition
5) Helping Salespeople Close More Deals!

With more testimonials than any other Sales Expert online (320+ on LinkedIn alone), Andy's work is recognised worldwide.

You can contact Andy here for more information, and how he may be able to help you!

Andy's Recent Accolades.......

* The World's Top Recommended Sales Expert
* Ranked UK's Top Sales Trainer - LinkedIn
* #2 In The Top 20 UK Sales Blogs - Lolly.co
* Top Sales Expert - Geniecast
* Top Sales Influencer - WittyParrott
* Top Sales Experts To Follow On Twitter - Evan Carmichael
* 10 Sales Experts Every Salesperson Should Follow On Twitter - Etail Insights
Andy Preston
Follow Me

Latest posts by Andy Preston (see all)