We all make mistakes and that includes some of the best salespeople in the business. Addressing and facing your pitfalls is the first step to doing a better job next time. So we sat down with a few sales experts and asked them, "What's your biggest sales mistake?" Here's what they said.

Being too aggressive or too passive.

"There’s one mistake that has two sides. One is too aggressively trying to close when the close isn’t there. And the other side is waiting too long and not closing. So it’s a very fine balance and it has taken me a long time to recognize when somebody says, 'Yeah, I’m ready to be nudged a little bit.' I’m still learning how to read those situations." -- Christopher Penn, VP, Marketing Technology, Shift Communications     

Not seeing a deal all the way though.

"I think the biggest mistake I’ve made as a salesperson, and I still do it from time to time, is I stop when I get the verbal acceptance of the deal. So if we work through a sales cycle and someone says, 'Hey! All right, we’re ready to go. Green light, thumbs up. Let’s do the deal.' And I think from that point on that it’s a done deal. But you really have to push it across the finish line and get the paperwork signed, get the check, etc." -- Kyle Porter, CEO, Sales Loft

Hiring the wrong fit.

"One of the biggest mistakes one can make as an executive or as a manager is bringing someone into the organization who’s not a great cultural fit. It’s a common mistake. It’s sort of common sense to say don’t bring in the wrong person, but common sense is not so common. I advise folks to be most cautious about this because teams can have cohesive energy and teamwork. They’re critical to success, especially in sales where morale and culture really shape the success of your sales."  -- Zorian Rotenberg, VP Sales & Marketing, Insight Squared

Lacking perspective on sales data.

"I think one mistake is perhaps looking only at data without any other perspective. I’m a huge proponent of data. I always have been. And for the most part, we make completely data-driven decisions. But you have to really understand the context of the data. It’s important to have people on your team that can really look at data and communicate that as a story within the proper framework and context. This way, other people in the company really understand where it’s coming from." -- William Tyree, CMO, RingDNA

Great salespeople are not always great sales managers.

"An interesting mistake that I’ve made is actually moving people into a sales management capacity that have been excellent salespeople, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to be great sales managers. And this is something I heard time and time again getting into the sales world, but it’s something you have to learn the hard way to really understand." -- Arjun Arora, CEO, Retargeter

Going over a prospect's boundaries.

"Especially from the social media perspective, you have to be pretty gentle when it comes to engaging and interacting.  There are all these awesome tools now. We hear about everything that like Salesforce1 can do and a lot of the different apps that feed into it. So now you can really kind of cyber-stalk your prospects and they won't even know that you know that information about them. I think there are certain boundaries that still have to be respected." -- Eric T. Tung, Social Media Manager, BMC Software

One-way communication.

"I’d say the most common mistake is to be a broadcast-only channel. To just line up a set of posts and push them and to ignore the climate of what’s happening, events in the media, catastrophic new you’ll see under really harsh conditions. If you continue to push your content, it can become inappropriate."  -- Tristan Bishop, Senior Director of Social Media Marketing, Informatica Corp

Not being who you are.

"I think the biggest mistake that salespeople make today is that they try to pretend they’re not salespeople. If you’re in sales, be in sales." -- Irreverent Sales Girl, Sales Blogger, Speaker

Not doing your research.

"Right out of college I went to a couple of unproven companies without researching them first. So I wish I would have researched them further and talked with my mentors before going to a couple different startups." -- Andrea Van Dell, Account Executive, salesforce.com

Now that you've heard some of the mistakes, learn how to do it right from more experts with the free sales e-book at the button below.