Mistakes that pre-sales should not make
Posted: Sat Apr 05, 2025 10:18 am
The role of a pre-salesperson (SDR or BDR) is to identify potential customers and qualify them, identifying their pain points and understanding whether your solution can help them. Often unnoticed, the pre-salesperson also generates market intelligence for your business with the information collected during calls. Through this information, it is possible to study the profile of your customers to generate future opportunities and develop the product. It is clear how important the pre-sales area is, right? But whether the lead is inbound or outbound, every pre-salesperson is prone to making mistakes in their prospecting. Between countless attempts to contact, organize and update the pipeline, respond to emails and approach on different social networks, mistakes are understandable. Therefore, in this post we have separated the main mistakes made by pre-salespersons and how to avoid them. We hope that with this post you or your team will reduce the possibility of making mistakes and thus increase the effectiveness of your sales process.
Time for self-analysis!
With the commercial market becoming increasingly competitive, you need to be open to self-criticism, to identify the mistakes you still make and then improve your techniques. In addition to constantly whatsapp data improving your profile as a commercial professional, it will directly affect your results. At the end of this post, identify if you make any of these mistakes and make a plan for your development, understand how you can improve and start practicing. This way, you will achieve (or even exceed) the expected results and become a high-performance professional!
Prospect blindly.
Don't start prospecting every type of business without understanding which ones will make sense for your solution. That way, you won't have focus and will waste time contacting leads that are unlikely to advance in your sales process. It's important that you already have your customer profile in mind, that is, that you have defined who your company's ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is.
Not engaging in pre-prospecting research.
It is understandable that a pre-salesperson's routine is hectic, which can make them anxious to call right away, all the time. However, not doing a thorough research on your lead before contacting them can cost you your appointment and, who knows, what could be a future sale. You should not contact the lead without knowing anything about them, their company or product. Personalization during prospecting is of the utmost importance so that the lead feels important and realizes your interest in talking to them, making them more open to reciprocating the interest. Who talks to someone on the phone who doesn't know who they called?
Easily give up on the lead.
Often, the anxiety of a salesperson's goal-oriented routine can hinder their results, especially if there is no well-planned and targeted process. Many salespeople give up on a lead in prospecting that they cannot connect with after 2 or 3 attempts, many of which are only by phone. This can result in wasted leads that could become customers or even harm your sales cycle, given that there is no defined pattern of attempts. The important thing is to organize a cadence flow, where you alternate between attempts to connect by phone, email and social networks (LinkedIn). If your lead does not answer your phone call one day, send a message on LinkedIn the next day, while sending emails at the same time, and try again the connection by phone the next day. According to your sales process and the data already collected from your pre-sales area, define the best connection points and the average number of connections made and you will achieve success.
Do not apply any prospecting techniques.
Many SDRs, and even salespeople, are not familiar with sales techniques, but they apply them unconsciously. We are talking about SPIN, GPCT, BANT, etc. When studying them, you will even find examples of questions to be asked for each type and to define which technique is best for your business, you can count on information from your ICP and the structure of your sales process, which information is necessary for greater sales effectiveness. If you do not have a standard for conducting your pitch, the data passed on to the salesperson may not have the necessary value to help them sell, considering that they will always be conversations with different conducts and exchanges of information.
Let the lead control the conversation.
The lead should be the one who talks most during the call, which doesn't mean letting them lead the way. You should be the one asking the questions so that they can give you the information you want. To better control the call, set up what we call an agenda with the lead. At the beginning of the call, confirm how much time they have available to talk to you, let them know that you will ask them some questions that are important to get to know their business, and that right after the call is over, you will also be available to answer their questions. Remember not to turn the call into an interview by peppering the lead with questions! Build rapport and develop a conversation with their answers, talk about data and research on their pain points, make connections with your company's solutions and deliverables, but don't let the lead feel like they are being interrogated.
Not making a commitment with the lead to meet with the salesperson.
The meeting with the salesperson should be scheduled when the lead is genuinely interested in learning about your solution, understanding that the time of the scheduled meeting will be used to help their company. Never schedule the meeting for a long time after your call; try to schedule it for no more than 1 or 2 days later. You should suggest times, demonstrating authority, and make it clear that you will contact them to confirm the meeting. Remember to emphasize that it is very important that if something goes wrong, you let them know that you will not be able to attend, and that your salesperson is busy and will be scheduling a time to help them. Make a commitment!
Time for self-analysis!
With the commercial market becoming increasingly competitive, you need to be open to self-criticism, to identify the mistakes you still make and then improve your techniques. In addition to constantly whatsapp data improving your profile as a commercial professional, it will directly affect your results. At the end of this post, identify if you make any of these mistakes and make a plan for your development, understand how you can improve and start practicing. This way, you will achieve (or even exceed) the expected results and become a high-performance professional!
Prospect blindly.
Don't start prospecting every type of business without understanding which ones will make sense for your solution. That way, you won't have focus and will waste time contacting leads that are unlikely to advance in your sales process. It's important that you already have your customer profile in mind, that is, that you have defined who your company's ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) is.
Not engaging in pre-prospecting research.
It is understandable that a pre-salesperson's routine is hectic, which can make them anxious to call right away, all the time. However, not doing a thorough research on your lead before contacting them can cost you your appointment and, who knows, what could be a future sale. You should not contact the lead without knowing anything about them, their company or product. Personalization during prospecting is of the utmost importance so that the lead feels important and realizes your interest in talking to them, making them more open to reciprocating the interest. Who talks to someone on the phone who doesn't know who they called?
Easily give up on the lead.
Often, the anxiety of a salesperson's goal-oriented routine can hinder their results, especially if there is no well-planned and targeted process. Many salespeople give up on a lead in prospecting that they cannot connect with after 2 or 3 attempts, many of which are only by phone. This can result in wasted leads that could become customers or even harm your sales cycle, given that there is no defined pattern of attempts. The important thing is to organize a cadence flow, where you alternate between attempts to connect by phone, email and social networks (LinkedIn). If your lead does not answer your phone call one day, send a message on LinkedIn the next day, while sending emails at the same time, and try again the connection by phone the next day. According to your sales process and the data already collected from your pre-sales area, define the best connection points and the average number of connections made and you will achieve success.
Do not apply any prospecting techniques.
Many SDRs, and even salespeople, are not familiar with sales techniques, but they apply them unconsciously. We are talking about SPIN, GPCT, BANT, etc. When studying them, you will even find examples of questions to be asked for each type and to define which technique is best for your business, you can count on information from your ICP and the structure of your sales process, which information is necessary for greater sales effectiveness. If you do not have a standard for conducting your pitch, the data passed on to the salesperson may not have the necessary value to help them sell, considering that they will always be conversations with different conducts and exchanges of information.
Let the lead control the conversation.
The lead should be the one who talks most during the call, which doesn't mean letting them lead the way. You should be the one asking the questions so that they can give you the information you want. To better control the call, set up what we call an agenda with the lead. At the beginning of the call, confirm how much time they have available to talk to you, let them know that you will ask them some questions that are important to get to know their business, and that right after the call is over, you will also be available to answer their questions. Remember not to turn the call into an interview by peppering the lead with questions! Build rapport and develop a conversation with their answers, talk about data and research on their pain points, make connections with your company's solutions and deliverables, but don't let the lead feel like they are being interrogated.
Not making a commitment with the lead to meet with the salesperson.
The meeting with the salesperson should be scheduled when the lead is genuinely interested in learning about your solution, understanding that the time of the scheduled meeting will be used to help their company. Never schedule the meeting for a long time after your call; try to schedule it for no more than 1 or 2 days later. You should suggest times, demonstrating authority, and make it clear that you will contact them to confirm the meeting. Remember to emphasize that it is very important that if something goes wrong, you let them know that you will not be able to attend, and that your salesperson is busy and will be scheduling a time to help them. Make a commitment!