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Forces hiding in the shadows are now making moves that threaten you. Anonymous sources are reporting on their actions and plans, offering you a warning, and suggesting that you prepare yourself for a very different future, one that isn’t going to be good for you. Here are some sales conspiracy theories you may be believing:

1. Your competitor wins because they compete on price.

You don’t really lose deals because you didn’t differentiate your approach throughout the sales conversation or create greater value. You only lost because your competitors have conspired to always offer a lower price than you. You are a good person, and you are a better salesperson. Were it not for this plot to keep you from winning; you would win every contest.

2. Your company has a higher price so they can make more money.

You may have noticed all of the expensive cars in your parking lot on the way into work this morning. The leadership of your company is dead set on getting rich by charging clients more than anyone else. They are not investing more in delivering a better solution by investing more in delivering greater value. The only reason your company’s clients pay more is that they are somehow in this secret plan.

3. Your territory isn’t as good as your neighbor’s territory.

No one wants you to succeed. Your sales manager and the shady characters in your sales operations team want to make sure you are never a candidate for President’s Club. So they meticulously created a geographical territory that contains no clients you could win. You’ve noticed the number one rep from your primary competitor has this same territory, and you are sure this is all by design.

4. None of your contacts will schedule a meeting with you.

This makes no sense. Even though you told them you want to share all the things that make your company great and how you can help them by selling them your product, they still refuse to agree to put time on their calendar. You know that you are better than your competition, and you don’t know for sure, but you get the sense that something or someone is preventing you from acquiring meetings. But what—or who—could it be?

5. The salespeople at the top of the stacked ranking have better leads.

Your leads are no good. They never buy anything from you. Even though people only whisper about the fact that all the good leads go to the very best salespeople, everyone is aware of the favoritism. The powers that be are doing everything in their power to prevent you from getting the good leads, the ready-to-buy leads that go to the chosen few.

6. No one buys from a salesperson who cold calls them.

You are not exactly sure why you are expected to make cold calls when your sales manager is well aware of LinkedIn and Tik-Tok and the power of social selling. They’ve read the posts from the “experts” who exposed the fact that no one buys anything from salespeople who cold call them. Even though you have no idea how every decision-maker was told to refuse to buy from salespeople who called them directly, you have faith that all will soon be revealed.

7. Your solution and pricing is designed to come in second place.

The last three clients you competed for all said the very same thing when they called you to tell you they awarded the business to your competitor. It was eery how they all used the same words, “You came in a close second. If it weren’t for your price, we’d have chosen you instead of your competitor.” This can’t be a coincidence, can it” Surely they are trying to tell you something. But what could it mean?

8. Your prospective clients go dark after you meet with them.

There is a coordinated effort aimed at discouraging you and preventing you from winning deals. Every time you have a first meeting with a contact, they ask you to call or email them next week to schedule a follow-up meeting with them. But when you call them, they don’t answer. Your emails never receive a response. There is no way that this could keep happening to you without there being some larger force pulling strings.

9. Your sales manager is trying to discourage you.

It seems that every week she asks you about the new opportunities you created. You keep reminding her that you are working on that one big deal. Either she is the most forgetful person you have ever met, or she is working to make sure you are discouraged and fail. She seems quite happy when other people share their new opportunities, but doesn’t appreciate your big deal, so you keep reminding her. There is something amiss here. You need to get to the bottom of this.

There are larger forces at work here.

You will have to do your best to discover and expose them if you want to improve your results. Other b2b sales reps have seemed to crack the code, figuring out how to succeed despite the many conspiratorial forces preventing you from winning.

What’s odd, is that when you ask other B2B salespeople to share their secrets with you, they will only tell you that they “stick to the fundamentals of good sales,” surely some code you need to decipher if you want to uncover the conspiracy and finally succeed sales.

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Sales 2020
Post by Anthony Iannarino on May 20, 2020

Written and edited by human brains and human hands.

Anthony Iannarino
Anthony Iannarino is a writer, an international speaker, and an entrepreneur. He is the author of four books on the modern sales approach, one book on sales leadership, and his latest book called The Negativity Fast releases on 10.31.23. Anthony posts daily content here at TheSalesBlog.com.
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