Summary: As you approach each new selling opportunity, you want to be focused and aware -- that includes keeping on the lookout for the tell-tale signs which indicate your prospect might have one of the three personality types that make selling a nightmare.<br> <br> <br> <br> If you've been reading my newsletter or listening to my podcasts for any length of time, you know that I'm a big fan of building your business proactively.<br> <br> That means deciding who you will do business with and who you will NOT do business with.<br> In this episode, we'll discuss 3 Personality Types that Make Selling a Nightmare.<br> As salespeople and business owners, it's really important to keep a good attitude -- starting the day off positively and expecting good things. And that's a lot easier to do when you have an awesome client base made up of people you actually enjoy interacting with.<br> <br> In fact, one of the things I love most about having my own business is getting to decide which customers to pursue and which to leave to my competitors -- and you can only imagine the type of customers I like to leave to my competitors.<br> <br> As we approach each new selling opportunity, we want to remain focused and aware -- and we want to be on the lookout for the tell-tale signs which indicate your prospect might have one of the three personality types that make selling a nightmare:<br> <br> 1. Indecisives: In the classic success book, Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill identified a primary characteristic that the most successful people have in common. It's the ability to make important decisions quickly and change their minds slowly, if at all.<br> <br> Let's face it, we all just LOVE dealing with people like this. People who say, "Yes, let's run with that promotion you're suggesting. How soon can we get started?"<br> <br> Compare that with the opposite: The indecisives who say, "I'm not sure. I need to think about it. Give me a call back in a few weeks."<br> <br> Everyone in sales deals with indecisives. They come with the territory. Some can actually go on to become good clients if you have the patience to deal with them, but they can also make selling a nightmare.<br> <br> 2. Know-it-alls: These are the people who act as if everything you say is already known to them. "Oh yes, I'm aware of what promotional products can do, just tell me the cost." Know-it-alls are not always open to ideas, but often feel compelled to share their own thoughts and ideas constantly. They're big on monologue vs. dialogue.<br> <br> As a result, they can waste a lot of your time telling you about things. And since they don't listen particularly well, it's often difficult getting them to commit.<br> <br> 3. Slow pays, no pays. For some unfathomable reason, some people think it's perfectly fine to pay late, miss payments, renegotiate terms they already agreed to, ignore payment requests and not give it a second thought. But every time someone does this to you, you have hard costs associated with that. You need to make phone calls, send emails, track payments and follow-up. Some people pull the "check's in the mail" routine, forcing you to wait for the never-sent check to arrive, at which point you have to contact them again and ask them to "reissue the check" which they may or may not do.<br> <br> All of this costs you in terms of administrative time that you either have to pay someone else to do, or you have to do yourself, which is probably even more costly in the long run, because it takes you away from the high value, high dollar work that actually generates revenue for you to begin with.<br> <br> When someone takes a casual approach to getting you paid on time, that's a screaming indication that you might be dealing with the wrong type of client.<br> <br> Obviously, there are lots more than 3 personality types that make selling a nightmare. Which ones have I missed?
