5 Counterintuitive Mistakes Preventing You From Closing Revenue    There are times salespeople don’t make the best decisions that lead to closing deals. These mistakes can cause a loss in revenue. Let’s take a look at the 5 counter intuitive mistakes preventing you from closing revenue.  Devin Reed is a content strategy manager at Gong. He handles all the content marketing strategy courses and is responsible for presentations. He also goes to roadshows, such as Sales Live Miami.  At this roadshow, Devin talked about  5 Counterintuitive Mistakes Preventing You From Closing Revenue. It’s about the five things salespeople think are good practices, and are trained to believe are good habits when in fact, they’re the opposite. These five mistakes hurt their deals and sales conversations. What Devin is sharing is backed up by data.  Devin works for a company that has millions of sales conversations. They’ve analyzed these conversations to see patterns that help them get an idea of the things salespeople talk about the most. Here are the 5 counterintuitive mistakes preventing you from closing revenue.  Using the ROI to seal the deal Focusing on quantity when it comes to discovery questions Answering objections quickly and thoroughly Using  large enterprise clients Using cold call opening line Don’t use ROI to seal the deal People make the mistake of using the ROI to close. Finding a way to bring ROI into the conversation is one of the basic strategies taught to beginning sales reps.  This strategy is proving to be counterintuitive.  ROI isn’t bad in itself, but it becomes an ineffective tool when it is used for persuasion. Presenting your ROI to the client doesn’t work because the information doesn’t go to the right part of their brain.  The human brain has two parts - the emotional and rational. More often than not, the right part processes information later than the emotional part. If you want to get the attention of your prospects, you need to tap into the emotional side of their brains first. You do this by giving them a before and after story. “Hey, I was in a podcast and not to brag or anything but that podcast did so well. They were doing this and that. I came on and I did this thing and two weeks later, they saw an X increase in their ROI.” This is an example of having a “before and after”, then diving into the ROI.  When you are able to provide the identifiers with the before and after stories, the emotional pull comes in. Make it a goal to tap into their curiosity instead of just desperately presenting the numbers. A good salesperson always starts with emotion and understands people need to feel before they will give you their ear and show interest. After you’ve piqued their interest, then you can get to the boss to present the ROI. You show them what you can do for them is not only a great idea but also makes fiscal sense.  Another reason why presenting the ROI often doesn’t work is because it’s naively done. Junior sales reps usually speak to CFOs who have years of experience. Their newness in the industry and lack of confidence make their calculations look phony. CFOs don’t find the numbers trustworthy.  Focusing on quantity when it comes to discovery questions Most salespeople have a discovery playbook with 15 to 30 questions. New sales reps believe it’s necessary to ask them all because they have the mindset the more questions mean more information and eventually, the more chances of closing the deal. While asking questions isn’t a bad thing per se,  it can give buyers discovery fatigue. It feels more like an interrogation than a valuable business conversation.  Based on the data, 11 - 14 targeted questions is the sweet spot for the number of questions a salesperson should ask. The article by Chris Orlob entitled Why You Can’t Sell to C-suite Executives shares how salespeople only have four questions to ask C-suite executives.  Tips when asking targeted questions:  Use open-ended questions Using open-ended question