Pushy sales pitches can cost more customers than they gain

3/30/2011

A commonly repeated sales motto is "always be closing," which means that salespeople should always be pushing for the sale. However, as a recent post from American Express OPEN Forum asserts, this mentality may be costing business owners more sales than they are gaining.

"The days of the pushy salesperson are long gone. And if you’re still measuring sales performance on quantity (revenue) instead of quality (profit), then you are bound to get reluctant customers who cost money to integrate into your system and are often lost before they become truly profitable," explains the source.

Instead, business owners need to do a better job of finding consumers who are a natural fit for their product or service. Entrepreneurs should start with existing customers and find out what their best assets are. Then, business owners will have a better idea of where to go from there.

With greater access to commercial loans, more companies are looking to readjust their approach to marketing. This advice may come in handy for those companies.