Here are the 12 most common mistakes that my sales clients are making at thebeginning of our coaching sessions. By the time we're through, they've learnedhow to avoid them.

1. UNCLEAR THINKING. If you can't describe the objective ofyour interaction in one sentence, you may be guilty of fuzzy focus, trying tosay too much at once. You'll confuse your listener, and that doesn't make thesale. Decide exactly what you want and need to accomplish in this contact. Whatwould be a positive outcome? For example, imagine that a busy executive says,"You have exactly ten minutes of my time to tell me what you want me toknow about your company. In one sentence, tell me how I should describe yourbenefits when I talk to my managers tomorrow." At any stage of the salesprocess, you should know in advance why you are interacting, what benefits youare offering your prospect or client, and what you'd like the next step to be.

2. NO CLEAR STRUCTURE. Make it easy for your prospect tofollow what you are saying, whether in a casual conversation or a formalpresentation of information and ideas. They'll remember it better--and you willtoo. Otherwise, you may forget to make a key point. If you waffle or ramble,you lose your listeners. Even for a conversation, mentally outline your objectives.What key "Points of Wisdom" do you want the prospect to remember? Howwill you illustrate each point? What colorful examples will your prospect beable to repeat three days later? What phrases or slogans do you want toguarantee they will repeat afterwards? You speak to be remembered and repeated.

3. TALKING TOO MUCH . Salespeople often talk too much aboutthemselves and their service or product. They make a speech rather than havingan exchange or interaction, otherwise known as conversation. The key toconnecting with a client is conversation; the secret of client conversation isto ask questions; the quality of client information received depends on thequality of the questions--and waiting for, and listening to, the answers!In fact, a successful encounter early in the sales process should probably bemostly open-ended questions, the kind that require essay answers rather thanjust "yes" and "no." And don't rush on with preprogrammedquestions that pay no attention to the answer you've just received. Learn tolisten, even pausing to wait for further comments. Silence draws people out.

4. NO MEMORABLE STORIES. People rarely remember your exactwords. Instead, they remember the mental images your words inspire. Supportyour key points with vivid, relevant stories. Help them "make themovie" in their minds by using memorable characters, exciting situations,intriguing dialogue, suspense, and humor. Telling stories of satisfied clientsand painting a picture of how this client’s condition will be improved withyour product or service are appropriate.

5. NO THIRD-PERSON ENDORSEMENTS. There's a limit to howmany bold claims you can make about your company and product results, but thereis no limit to the words of praise you can put in the mouths of yourdelighted clients. Use case histories of your clients' success stories aboutthe benefits they received from your service or product. When you are usingtheir actual dialogue, you can say much more glowing things about yourself andyour company than you could if the words were your own. Your endorsementstories should use the same ingredients as a good Hollywoodmovie: create memorable characters, use vivid dialogue, and provide a dramaticlesson learned.

The dramatic lesson learned in your Hollywoodstory will be the benefits of doing business with you. Choose characters thatyour prospects can connect with. It helps if the star of your story holds asimilar position to your prospect. You can't say, "Do business with me,and you'll get promoted," but you can give a specific example of someonewho phoned, e-mailed, or wrote you that this happened to them. "Just lastweek," you might say, "I heard from Mary Smith. She's the PayrollManager at Amalgamated Systems. She said that changing their payroll system toour company not only made them more efficient, but they cut their costs 10%.She told me, 'You made me look good in the eyes of management. Thanks to you, Ireceived a promotion!'" That's an emotional connection.

6. NO EMOTIONAL CONNECTION. The most powerful communicationcombines both intellectual and emotional connections. Intellectual meansappealing to educated self-interest with data and reasoned arguments. Emotioncomes from engaging the listeners' imaginations, involving them in yourillustrative stories by frequent use of the word "you" and fromanswering their unspoken question, "What's in this for me?"Obviously, a customer is going to justify doing business with you for specificanalytical reasons. What gives you the edge--what I like to call the"unfair advantage"--is creating an emotional connection too. Buildthis emotional connection by using stories with characters that they can relateto and by providing a high I/You ratio, using the word "you" as oftenas possible and talking from their point of view.

My recommendation is that you make telephone appointments with your happiestclients. Tell them you would like to use their stories about working with youas an endorsement, and ask permission to tape record your conversation. Thenjust let them talk. The more they say, encouraged now and then by a questionfrom you, the better their stories and quotes will be. Finally, select the bestquotes from what they've said.

7. WRONG LEVEL OF ABSTRACTION. Are you providing the bigpicture and generalities when your listeners are hungry for details, facts, andspecific how-to's? Or are you drowning them in data when they need to positionthemselves with an overview and find out why they should care? Get on the samewavelength with your prospects. For first contacts with executives, describewhat your company can do for them in broad generalities. With middle managers,discuss exactly how you can work together, a medium level of abstraction. Ifyou are dealing with IT professionals, use the lowest level of abstraction,lots of facts and figures. Don't discuss aspects or details of what you'reoffering that your audience has no interest in.

8. NO PAUSES. Few sales presentations have enough pauses.Good music and good communication both contain changes of pace, pauses, andfull rests. This is when listeners think about important points you've justmade. If you rush on at full speed to crowd in as much information as possible,chances are you've left your prospects back at the station. Give them enoughtime to ask a question or even time to think over what has been said. Pausesallow pondering and understanding.

9. IRRITATING NON-WORDS. Hmm--ah--er--you know what Imean--. One presenter I heard began each new thought with "Now!" ashe scanned his notes to figure out what came next. This might be okayoccasionally, but not every 30 seconds. Practice in front of your sales manageror colleagues, giving them permission to call out whenever you hem or ah. Orvideo or digitally record yourself, and note any digressions.

10. STEPPING ON THE PUNCH-WORD. The most important word ina sentence is the punch-word. Usually, this is the final word: "Take mywife--PLEASE." But if you drop your voice or add, "Right?" or"See?" or "You know?" or "Okay?," you've killedthe impact of your message. Another popular punch-line killer is the word"today." Avoid saying, "Let's look at the recommendations wehave for you today." Obviously, you're talking "today." Thepunch word in this sentence should be "recommendations."

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld says, "I'll spend an hour reducing aneight-word sentence to five words because the joke will be funnier." Itrain sales teams to do the same thing with their key phrases because theirpresentations will be more powerful. We go through their sentences, looking forthe "$10 words." Not every word or phrase is, or should be, of equalimportance. Emphasize the action words and phrases or those that make anemotional connection. "And"-"it"-"in" areno-dollar words.

One recommendation I make to sales teams is to came up with what I call"$100 phrases." My clients get excited and call out, "Wow,that's SO good!" whenever someone uses an especially potent phrase. Oftenit is a succinct term for a hard-to-describe benefit. Such a phrase can be priceless.For example, a company offering a complex process might explain, "We'relike a security guard that keeps the bad guys out and lets the good guysin."

To find $100 phrases for your company, I suggest this process: Imagineyou're trying to explain what you do to your 82-year-old great aunt. How youdescribe it should be part of your conversational sales presentation. This isan especially good technique to use for executive overviews. If your $100phrase is "visual enough," your prospects and clients will repeat itlater.

11. NOT HAVING A STRONG OPENING AND CLOSING. Engage youraudience immediately with a powerful, relevant opening that includes them. Forexample, "You have an awesome responsibility." Then fill in what itis: increasing sales, reducing errors, cutting overhead, whatever your productcan help your prospect do. Another excellent strategy is to do some research.Then you can say, "Congratulations on your company's recent success,"and describe it. Or "I love your new commercials." Most salespeoplestart by talking about their company. Talk about your prospect instead.

Whenever I give a speech for a company, I check out their web site,corporate reports, or press releases to find something their Chairman of theBoard or CEO has said that I can quote. You can do this too, making it almostsound as if their CEO is recommending your company. For example, "Our corevalues are--" and match them to your own. Or "We subscribe to BestPractices, and all our preferred vendors do as well." That's you!

To close, pick the one sentence that you absolutely want embedded in theirminds, even if you don't get the appointment or the sale. Leave them with astrong, positive message. They might say, "We're happy with our presentvendor." You reply, "I appreciate your LOYALTY [a $10 word.] If youever want a SECOND vendor [$10 word] or for any reason they DISSATISFY [$10word] you, you need to do business with a company that will be around LONG-TERM[$10 word.] Please remember, we've been PROFITABLE [$10 word] for the last 167quarters [$10 word.]"

In the search for $100 phrases, don't just add up $10 words. A $100 phrasestands alone. It is a repetitive refrain that is so valuable to your companythat every salesperson needs to be trained to use it in every presentation.

12. MISUSING TECHNOLOGY . Too many salespeople rely toomuch on their PowerPoint© and flip charts and not enough on making an emotionalconnection. My friend, Charles H. Green, co-author of The Trusted Advisor,writes about four advertising agencies who were given an opportunity to bid fora large account. Each group had two hours.

The last team walked in and said, "We're ready to do exactly what theother three competing agencies have done. We can give you the Dance of aThousand Slides, but you have a choice. You can pretend you already hired us,and for the next two hours we can start brainstorming on your account. If youhire us, you've received two free hours consultation, and if you don't, you'vestill had two hours free." They proved they could think on their feet andbe flexible. This won them a very profitable account. They showed they coulduse the latest technology, but, more important, that they didn't need it.

"Whenever you're being considered for a job," says Charlie"act as if you already have it. Most people want to think that the qualityof their work speaks for itself. It doesn't. Beat your competition by gettingto work for your prospect immediately. Demonstrate how it will feel to beworking together."

All four agencies could have done a fine job. The one that landed theaccount had enough confidence in their presentation skills to use technology ornot. The client was exhilarated by their work session, impressed by theagency's flexibility, and confident this agency would and could do a great job.Many sales teams couldn't communicate with a prospect for two hours without thehelp of a suitcase full of charts, slides, and electronic equipment.

Bottom line: Make technology a support, not a crutch.

When you learn to avoid these 12 common traps, you're on yourway to being a "star" of the sales world, ready to accept an awardfor your dazzling performance.