1. Set small goals…Stay comfortable, no need to take risks and get stressed because you set the bar to high. Keep telling yourself it is better to hit 100% of a £100K goal than £800K of a million pound goal.

2. Do no planning…Fly by the seat of your pants and learn to be reactive instead of proactive. It is not like you need to know where your next sale is coming from. Being organised and prioritising the pipeline into a clearly defined plan is for high achievers only. Better off sticking with the pipedream!

3. Have no objectives for every sales opportunity…By having no objectives you will never feel disappointed and you don’t want any of that do you? A big plus here is that if you have no objectives you can have a good chat and tell potential customers all about yourself.

4. Do no research…Time is precious why would you want to waste it checking out a potential client via the Web, Facebook, LinkedIn, their web site etc. The more you know about them will mean you might have all you need to build rapport and that might get in the way of you telling them all about you and your product!

5. Ensure your coffee goes cold…Because that will mean you are doing plenty of talking and very little listening. If you follow the tried and tested successful approach of asking questions and listening (2 ears 1 mouth use them in proportion) you might get the sale and you wouldn’t want that would you?

6. Always presume you know what they are talking about…You know best, and that means that you don’t need to clarify anything when the potential customer is telling you about their problem. Better to sell them your product than actually give them what they actually need.

7. Stick rigidly to your process…Stick to your guns and have no flexibility it is up to the prospect to fit into your system. No need to tax your brain in the ‘game of sales’.

8. Let them know how wrong they are when they give you an objection…How dare they object. You have given them your time, your best sales patter, and, of course, you know what is best for them. So therefore there is no need for you to consider any objections you may be given or fully prepare any solutions to help them overcome their fears.

9. Wait for them to get in touch…Agreeing the next steps and systemising your follow up process will get in the way of you doing more urgent work. After all they would be mad to go elsewhere to purchase what you have offered them wouldn’t they?

10. Do not build relationships…You have enough friends, facebook and linkedIn connections. More relationships will take up more of your time better to let them move on to your competition.

Alternatively…You may want to be successful at sales, you may want to be a sales superstar. An easy solution would be to flip these ten bad habits and work really hard at doing the opposite. Of course you could always buck the trend and get some ‘Sales’ training…