New year. Fresh start. Fresh hopes. Unfortunately for many salespeople and business owners, those hopes will be crushed pretty quickly in 2014 if they fall into the same critical traps they did in 2013.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about the sort of mistakes novices or bad salespeople make here. I’m talking about the sort of insidious traps that even experienced salespeople and successful business owners experience yet often don’t even realize are issues.

Read through them carefully. Think seriously about whether you’re falling into these traps yourself.

Trap #1: Only Chasing “Hot Leads”

Chasing hot leads is a good thing right?

Well, the problem these days is that “hot leads” -- prospects who are ready to buy right now -- have pretty much made up their mind about who they’re going to buy from. And chances are, it’s not you.

Most significant purchases need a high degree of trust and credibility to be built before your customer or client will buy from you. If the first time you speak to them is just before they’re about to buy, then you’ve missed any chance to build up that credibility and trust.

You might get lucky. You might bump into someone who’s ready to buy but who hasn’t found a decent supplier yet. But chances are, you won’t.

Your best bet is to connect with them before they’re ready to buy. Connect when they’re still exploring what they want and they’re still open to being influenced.

By the time they do become a hot prospect, you can be in pole position to win their business.

Trap #2: The Wrong Sort of Follow Up

You know that follow up is critical to winning sales. Depending on the product and the buyer, it takes multiple contacts before they’ll be ready to buy. So you need to follow up.

Unfortunately for most people, follow up seems to mean regular emails to ask if they’re ready to buy yet.

That’s not follow up, it’s nagging. And no one likes being nagged.

Your goal with follow up is to strengthen your relationship with your potential client, not weaken it.

So instead of mindless chasing, follow up with value. Send them some useful information that will help them solve a related problem or clarify their decision. Introduce them to a useful contact. Invite them to an event they’ll enjoy.

In short, position yourself as a valuable asset, not an annoyance.

Then when they are ready, you’ll be the person they turn to.

Trap #3: Relying on Your Own “Get up and Go”

Most successful salespeople and business owners are self starters. Self reliant. Go getters. They often imagine themselves as a sort of Harrison Ford or Tom Cruise action hero type who saves the day by knowing things others don’t know and being able to do things others can’t.

And while those are powerful strengths to have, they can breed overreliance on your own spontaneous brilliance.

And the truth is that no one is at the top of their game all day, every day. Everyone has times when they’re overloaded or stressed out. Or they have other things on their mind.

If you’re reliant on your own “get up and go” to make everything happen then when you’re not at your perfect best, things just grind to a halt.

You forget to send that useful article that you normally post to potential clients after your first meeting. You struggle to find the time to draft a thank you note to a referrer, so you don’t do it. You lose track of how long it’s been since you spoke to that client who was thinking of a repeat purchase, so you don’t get back in touch.

Instead you need to build systems, templates and processes that ensure the key steps that will secure your sales happen whether you’re on top form or not. And can even happen without you.

It doesn’t have to be complex. A few steps written down for key events like follow up after an initial meeting or proposal, new customer onboarding etc. And a few preprogrammed triggers in your CRM. Enough to make sure that critical tasks get done without relying on you having to reinvent the wheel every time.

So how did you do? How many of those traps felt familiar to you?

To be honest, they’re the sort of traps we all fall into now and then. But they’re traps we’ve got to eliminate if we want to succeed in 2014.

About the Author

Ian Brodie is the author of "5 Simple Marketing Tweaks That Will Get You More Clients". He teaches consultants, coaches and other professionals how to attract and win more clients and was recently named one of the Top 25 Global Influencers in Sales and Sales Management by OpenView Labs.

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