Sales Killer #1: Not following up enough
If a prospect fills out a contact form on your website, CALL THEM IMMEDIATELY.
Yes, that’s obvious.
Why am I saying this in ALL CAPS if it’s so obvious?
BECAUSE NO ONE F*CKING DOES IT.
You have a real, live human being raising their hand and saying, “PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE help me give you my money!”—and by not following up, you’re basically saying, “No thanks 😌✨”
Your competitors aren’t the ones keeping you from picking up the phone. That inaction is all on you.
If you’re not great at following up, don’t feel too bad—most of the B2B SaaS startups we’ve featured in our Time-to-Talk experiments gave up after very few follow-ups, and many don’t follow-up at all.
That’s actually good news if you use it to your advantage: By consistently following up with your hand-raisers until you get an answer, you’ll already be outperforming your competitors.
Follow up as many times as it takes to get a result: yes or a no.
Try different channels—don’t just stick to email. Email is fast and easy, but the phone still accelerates deals. You get quicker answers and more clarity with a real voice-to-voice conversation.
And if you call and they don’t pick up? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, LEAVE A VOICEMAIL.
(I’m shouting again because it’s something far too many sellers still need to hear.)
Sales Killer #2: Not personalizing your outreach
Lazy sellers send generic emails or DMs that are completely self-serving and basically amount to:
Hey stranger on the internet,
I see what [Your Company] is doing. I’m [Some Guy] from [Some Company]. Give me your time. I want to sell you this thing because I’d like to make money.
They blast the same impersonal message to thousands of leads and hope a handful will be intrigued enough to reply. And sure, sometimes they do—but never at the volume you need to scale.
Your competitors aren’t forcing you to push out ineffective, impersonal messaging to your leads. You have the power to step up your personalization game!
Look, I get it: Scaling requires automation. You need to streamline outreach and follow-up, and that means using templates and bulk sends.
But for your ideal prospects—the ones most likely to close—you should absolutely go the extra mile to personalize your messaging.
Keep in mind that “personalization” doesn’t mean writing a generic template for an entire demographic and sprinkling in a few random details to make it look unique.
Personalization works when you spot the opportunities to create a connection that will uniquely resonate with a specific person.
It’s human-to-human outreach and while it might slow you down at first, it’s worth it. Personalized messages win the hardest battles in sales: capturing interest, earning responses, and booking demos.
Pick 2-3 stakeholders at a target prospect and do a deep dive: Stalk their LinkedIn, read their posts, look at their comments and profile recommendations, listen to their podcast guest spots, etc.
Then, craft a message that proves you’ve been paying attention and actually understand what matters to them.
💡 Extra credit: Revisit my tips on how to write better personalized emails.
Sales Killer #3: Not asking for the close
This one kills me because it’s so damn fixable.
You run a great call. Good questions. Solid answers. Prospect is engaged. Everything seems aligned…
And then you wrap up with:
"Cool, I’ll send over the info and we’ll talk soon!"
WHAT?! NO.
Ask. For. The. Damn. Close.
Sales isn’t just about building rapport or giving information. It’s about driving decisions.
You’ve got to create momentum and lead the buyer toward action.
Your competitors aren’t the reason you’re not asking for the close early and often.
That means asking questions like:
- “What would it take to move forward with this this week?”
-
“What’s stopping us from kicking this off now?”
- “Are you ready to pull the trigger?”
We all know why we don’t do it—we’re afraid of hearing “no.”
Our doubts, fears, hesitations, anxieties, and insecurities are the real challenges stopping us from becoming unstoppable sales hustlers.
Remember: It’s entirely within our control to overcome our fears, and embrace the “no.”
You’ll need to hear a lot of “no” if you want to hear a lot of “yes,” too.
⚡️Get Dialed-In
Get a handle on the sales killers you can control:
- Follow-up and keep following up until you get a response, no matter how long it takes.
- Personalize your messaging for your ICP prospects, even if it’s not scalable.
- Ask for the close early and often. Embrace the “no.”
