13 Ways to Wreck a B2B Sales Deal

Everybody likes to talk about strategies for moving forward with buyers and ways to close deals, but what about the other side of the story? If you want to completely derail a deal and eliminate any chance that the buyer will choose your company, then follow this advice:

1. Make it all about you

Your buyers are coming to you because they have a problem they want solved. To drive them away, don’t even mention their needs. Instead, be sure to talk about how great your company is. You can mention all of the other people who use your solution and how it’s pretty much the best thing since sliced bread.

2. Ignore members of the buying team

If you’re handling a deal that has multiple buyers, why go through all the effort of reaching out to each one of them? Instead, just talk to one of the buyers and ignore the rest. You’ll fail to make an impact with the other decision makers, which means they’ll all vie for another seller.

3. Don't differentiate from competitors

Have a competitor with similar products and features? Make it easy for the buyers to choose your competitor’s option over yours by making zero effort to talk about what makes your product superior.

4. Don’t follow up

Go for the slow death by neglecting to follow up with them. Your buyers will forget you exist. That useful content and information that you could send them to keep the deal alive? Nah, just let those sit on your computer.

5. Don’t follow through

Did you tell your buyer that you would research something or send them a presentation? Definitely hold off on following through for a couple of weeks. For maximum effectiveness, don’t ever do what you promised them.

6. Become the jargon enthusiast

It’s time to bring out the sales clichés thesaurus and practice your best used car salesman impression. Can you find a way to fit sales jargon into every sentence? That’s a great question. I’m sure if you could, it would be a win-win for everyone. Now sharpen that pencil and we’ll circle back around to this topic when this limited time offer is back on the table.

7. Don’t be respectful of your buyer’s time

Hey, they’re the ones who scheduled the demo, right? I’m sure they won’t mind if the presentation goes an hour later than expected. (Spoiler alert: they mind, and they won’t stick around for demo #2)

8. Bash your competitors in front of the client

“Oh, those guys? I’m pretty sure a monkey could create a better product!” The smack talk will be quite informative to your buyers—they’ll get an idea of how you talk about them when they’re not around.

9. Become a chatter box

Here’s a fun game for you: Try talking so much and at such a high speed that the client can’t get a word in edgewise. For every word the buyer says, you lose a point! For a bonus, interrupt and speak over the buyer as much as possible.

10. Be arrogant

Guess what emotion people feel toward an arrogant, pushy sales rep (it’s not love, I promise you). Make sure your buyers know how honored they should feel that you deigned to call them. Make sure they know you’re a big deal. They’ll be sure to back off in awe of your amazing sales skills.

11. Don’t listen

Is your buyer talking about their pain points or what they’re hoping to accomplish through your product or services? That’s the perfect time to stop listening. If you’re having trouble tuning them out, try to strategize about what you can say next to steer to conversation back toward how great your company is.

12. Don’t try to think on your feet

Did your buyer ask you a question about one of your competitors? Go for the timeless “I’m not sure.” Responding to a question about project implementation? “I’ll get back to you” is another great option. If the conversation steers away from your script, shut it down right away.

13. Don’t build relationships

Why think of your buyer as a person when they can be identified as a number? Much more efficient that way. To avoid having your buyer get too comfortable with you, try “accidentally” referring to them by the wrong name. And definitely steer clear of any conversation that could lead to you knowing any details about the buyer.

Follow these 13 pieces of sales advice, and you’ll be sure to miss your quota. Let us know in the comments which of the 13 strategies you think is best for driving away buyers!