Not all sales shortcuts are created equal. Some, like scheduling follow-up emails or creating a repeatable framework for researching prospects, streamline your day without harming the quality of your work. Others save you time but damage your results — meaning you’ll ultimately be less productive for using them.
As the expression goes, “If you don’t have time to do it right, you won’t have time to do it again.”
Steer clear of these nine shortcuts, or you’ll only create more work for yourself.
Sales Shortcuts
1. Researching Your Prospect During the Call
Researching your prospects while you’re on the phone with them is better than not researching them at all — but barely.
If you’re scrolling through their LinkedIn profile and company website, you can’t pay attention to what they’re saying. Not only will you miss valuable information, but you’ll sound distracted. Few buyers will be interested in scheduling another meeting with someone who’s not paying attention right now.
Remember that 96% of consumers do their research before talking to a rep, so they already have a pretty good idea of what you offer. Don’t let them out-research you. Be equally ready.
My former colleague from Serpstat’s sales team learned this the hard way.
During an enterprise software pitch, a prospect threw out an unexpected question — one that shifted the conversation in the wrong direction.
Caught off guard, Alex fumbled to find the answer mid-call. That awkward silence and frantic searching cost him the deal. Later, the prospect admitted they chose a competitor who seemed to understand their business better.
Determined not to let that happen again, Alex built a pre-call research system covering:
- Prospect’s LinkedIn profile lookup
- Company news
- Leadership changes
- Industry challenges
When another prospect asked about field expertise, he had detailed notes ready. This led to much deeper conversations about their pain points and, ultimately, more successful deals.
Pro tip: Make sure you space your calls far enough apart so you can prepare before each one (e.g., 15-20 minutes). Better yet, review your scheduled meetings for the next day before you leave at night. Doing your research after regular business hours (rather than during) frees up additional selling time.
2. Trying to Connect With Prospects at the Same Time Every Day
Some salespeople settle into rigid calling and emailing routines. For example, they might call new prospects every morning, send emails in the afternoon, and contact existing opportunities in the hour before they leave the office.
The problem with sticking to a schedule? It’s difficult to connect with a buyer who’s on a different one. If your prospect never gets into the office before 10 a.m., they’ll miss your 9 a.m. call every day. If another prefers to check their emails at the crack of dawn, your mid-day messages will always get buried.
I explored this topic with Shannon Smith O’Connell, Operations Director (Sales & Team Development) at Reclaim247. She pointed out that sticking to a strict schedule backfired and killed her chances of real engagement.
O’Connell suggests using AI to get personalized insights that lead to authentic conversations.
«Craft your communication to reflect individual needs based on data insights (e.g., determining the best times to reach based on activity), and you’ll definitely enhance your connection potential,” she explained.
Pro tip: Use the email tracking tool in HubSpot Sales to see when individual contacts engage with your emails. Then, schedule yours to arrive when they’re typically online.
3. Running Your Demo and Discovery On the Same Call
Conducting discovery and a demo on the same call is like killing two birds with one stone, right?
Wrong. Your demo should be highly customized to your audience’s needs, desires, and goals — and you can’t achieve that level of customization without doing prep work.
Or as Rizala Carrington, CEO and Growth Executive at MyGrowthAgent.com, says:
“Discovery should be all about listening, while the demo should be all about demonstrating value based on what you’ve learned. Mixing the two dilutes both.”
Rizala described those calls as a messy, all-over-the-place conversation that never really landed. Instead of tackling real pain points, she just dumped a bunch of generic info. No surprise — the prospect lost interest, and the deal went nowhere every time.
Once she separated discovery and demo calls, everything changed. Now, she has time to really understand the prospect, tailor her pitch, and create real engagement during demos.
Pro tip: Use the discovery call to diagnose the buyer’s current situation and what they hope the future will look like. In between discovery and the demo, identify which product features will help them reach this better future. Then, craft your presentation around these features and their benefits.
4. Not Making a To-Do List
It might feel more efficient to keep track of undone tasks in your mind rather than on paper or in a virtual list, but you’ll end up losing precious hours. No one’s memory is faultless: Inevitably, you’ll forget details or entire tasks.
While adding an item like “Send Jamie Hills the blog post we discussed” takes an additional 10 seconds, failing to execute on that could delay the deal. You’ll spend far more time re-engaging your prospect than if you’d followed through on your commitment in the first place.
Daniel Cook, Business Development Specialist at KM Philly, was one of those who thought it was possible to pull up facts on the fly. But that led to prospects sensing his lack of preparation. Now, he swears by a to-do list — especially the one before the call.
“When you enter a call already aware of their industry challenges, you don’t sell — you consult,” says Cook.
After the call, create another to-do list to keep the momentum going:
- Write down key takeaways.
- Define next steps.
- Plan follow-up strategies — when, how, and what to say.
By the way, according to Belkins, the first follow-up email is the most effective, boosting reply rates by 49%.
So, if you don’t set a reminder for follow-ups, the chances of overlooking them and losing those opportunities are pretty high.
Pro tip: Don’t waste time writing down a to-do list for every lead. Set your CRM to automatically prompt a series of tasks after you complete, say, a discovery call. Create follow-up templates and personalize them after the call takes place.
All that frees you even more time and keeps leads engaged on semi-autopilot.
5. Sending the Same Content to Every Buyer
It may be easy to send the same content to every buyer, but it’s not effective. Imagine the majority of your prospects are finance managers. One might be focused on developing accounting processes for her company’s global expansion, another is concerned with reducing operational expenses, and the third is prioritizing rewriting her company’s expense policy.
If you forward an ebook about decreasing overhead to all three of these managers, it will only resonate with the second. Content should add value and help you establish credibility. To do that, it must be relevant to the individual prospect’s situation.
At the end of the day, only a personalized and individual approach will create a real connection and strong relationship, and we know that’s the only way to close deals.
Our research shows that 82% of sales pros say building relationships is not only the most important part of selling but also the most enjoyable. So, don’t let laziness or the urge to close a deal too quickly cost you those relationships.
If we take into account that 72% of revenue comes from existing customers while only 28% from new customers, the importance of building relationships is quite apparent.
Here’s what Cook from KM Philly thinks of it:
«Bulk emails can save time but murder engagement. I used to send the same generic sales message to everyone on my lead list, hoping the value prop alone would win them over. Response rate? Horrible.
“These days, I qualify my emails by industry, company role, and pain point. Then, personalize them with meaningful case studies or observations. Making this simple tweak boosted my response rate 3x over and gave my pitches the tone of dialogue, not junk mail.”
Pro tip: Hone in on your prospect’s likely priorities by looking at their site, browsing their company’s open jobs (which tells what areas they’re expanding in), reading specific job descriptions for your prospect’s department (which gives you granular insight into their team’s goals), and checking out their social media profiles.
6. Relying On a Single Point of Contact
There’s an average of five decision-makers involved in the sales process today. For enterprise deals, the number can jump as high as 10-15 stakeholders. And 28% of sales professionals say the biggest reason prospects back out of deals is because the sales process takes too long.
A solid approach to handling this is multi-threading, aka building relationships with multiple stakeholders at your target companies.
I dare to say that relying on a single point of contact within the company is a recipe for disaster: If they get sick, go on vacation, or leave their job, you’ll probably need to start from scratch.
And that’s not factoring in your contact’s internal influence. Maybe they don’t have a lot of social capital in their organization, or they’re new and ultimately unwilling to recommend any big changes. The wrong customer champion dramatically reduces your chances of closing.
Realtors know all too well how frustrating this can be. Adam Chahl from Vancouver Home Search shared his hard lessons:
“In real estate, I‘ve seen many agents make the mistake of building a relationship with just one person in a decision-making group, only to realize too late that they weren’t the final decision-maker. Early in my career, I put a ton of effort into nurturing a relationship with a client, only to find out that their spouse had completely different priorities when it was time to move forward,” Chahl said.
“The deal fell apart because I hadn‘t engaged both parties from the start. Now, I always make sure to connect with all stakeholders in a transaction, whether it’s a couple buying their first home or an investment group purchasing multiple properties.”
Pro tip: Ask your original contact to connect you with their coworkers so you can learn more about their individual priorities, buying criteria, and objectives. These details will help you tailor your message to each stakeholder and build consensus.
7. Trying to Go Around the Gatekeeper
Some salespeople try to avoid the gatekeeper at all costs. They’ll call the decision maker at odd hours, ask for their cell number instead of the office line, and remain vague about their intentions whenever they do end up talking to an executive assistant.
However, the gatekeeper doesn’t need to be your enemy — in fact, he can be your ally. Your prospect trusts him. If you get the gatekeeper’s approval, not only will you have an easier time connecting with the buyer, but you’ll also have more credibility from the get-go.
Another example from real estate goes to Amber Couron, Transaction Coordinator at Home Buying Hounds.
“I learned the hard way about bypassing gatekeepers when I tried going directly to a property owner, only to have the deal fall through because I’d alienated their trusted office manager,” she said.
“Gatekeepers often have valuable insights about the property and decision-making process that can make or break a sale. These days, I build genuine relationships with everyone involved, from receptionists to property managers, which has helped me close deals more smoothly and get better referrals.”
With that in mind, always treat gatekeepers with respect and courtesy. Instead of circumventing them, go out of your way to talk to them.
You might even ask the decision maker, “Is it okay if I ask [gatekeeper] a couple of questions about [prospect’s company] so I can get another perspective?”
If they say yes, you’ll have a valuable opportunity to learn from a true insider.
8. Relying Too Much on AI
A recent Gartner study reveals that 76% of sales leaders are either already using or planning to roll out generative AI this year. No doubt AI helps in sales with routine tasks.
However, AI tools can lack nuance, so failing to refine prompts or integrate real-time customer context can make interactions awkward or irrelevant.
Also, if you’re planning to fire a couple of your salespeople just because “AI can do it now,” think twice. AI is an assistant, not a closer. It can streamline tasks, generate insights, and automate outreach, but at the end of the day, relationships and trust close deals. AI helps, but sales is still a people game.
What you can use AI for:
Explore and test, but let’s not let AI take over the human part.
9. Ignoring Past-Due Follow-Up Calls to Focus on Other Tasks
I’ve been in sales, and I’ve made my fair share of mistakes, too. One of the biggest? Avoiding follow-up calls to check on deal status. The task is daunting by its nature, and a sales rep can find a million reasons to push a call to tomorrow when it’s due today.
Early in my career, I had 53 deals in the pipeline — each with necessary follow-up calls and emails. For the latter, I used templates and adapted them to fit every prospect. For calls, I had to pick up the phone. No shortcuts. So, I kept delaying them.
Unfortunately, it resulted in lost opportunities and was noticed by my manager.
In the end, I had to overcome my fear of “being pesky” and make those calls without having them piling up. To my surprise, my conversion rate from prospect to deal increased.
Don’t let something get in the way of following up with your potential clients. It can make or break a deal.
Pro tip: Hone the craft of sales calls by reading sales books, role-playing with your peers and managers, and attending webinars/courses. These all help a salesperson become a better negotiator and seal more deals.
Mistakes should be lessons, not patterns.
After chatting with experts, I was once again convinced that we learn best from our own mistakes. It’s tough, no doubt, with missed opportunities, wasted time, and money, but that’s how we move forward.
So, I hope you’ll at least take away something from these nine mistakes others made and try not to repeat them.
The big thing to remember? Even though AI is tempting to rely on for everything, we still need to stick to some old-school sales processes. And by “old-school,” I mean solid research, prepping your calls, staying focused, and personalizing your approach with each prospect.