4 Things a Prospect Doesn't Want to Hear

I used to think running a marathon would be the most painful thing I would ever do, but getting our company's website redesigned runs a close second.

My company sells software as a service, and I seldom get to sit on the other side of the table—the prospect side—but I did recently when we met with a series of web design/marketing companies. Coincidently, I had just finished reading Rethinking the Sales Cycle by John R. Holland and Tim Young. The book lays out in fine detail how important it is to listen to prospects, to respect their knowledge and research, and to understand how they want to buy, rather than how you want to sell to them.

Therefore, as we started the process of choosing a design partner, I was already highly sensitive to how our company's sales team was relating to prospects, and I was mindful of the pitfalls service sellers should avoid. The web design firms we listened to hit the big ones.