Small sales mistakes are what usually slow your deals down.
Not big strategy issues. Not pricing. Not competition.
Just small things that happen inside everyday sales calls… the kind that look harmless, but quietly stretch a 2-week deal into a 2-month one.
You’ve probably seen this. You get on a call, and in 20–30 minutes the next step is clear. Sometimes the buyer is already talking timelines.
Same situation, your sales rep handles it… and suddenly it becomes a “let’s reconnect next week” situation that somehow keeps reconnecting forever.
Hey there, I’m Tabish Bibikar, and I coach and mentor founders of software companies to build scale in their business fast… and this gap shows up the moment you start depending on a sales team.
The first mistake is going into the product too early.
On your calls, you usually stay on the problem a bit longer. For example, if you’re selling a SaaS tool, you might ask, “How much time is your team spending on this every week?”
Your sales rep jumps in with, “Let me show you the dashboard.”
Five minutes in, the buyer is nodding… but mentally already in “I’ll review this later” mode.
Simple fix — delay the demo a bit. Get numbers first. Time, cost, effort. Once the problem feels real, the product makes more sense.
Second mistake is being too polite.
You’ll ask, “If this doesn’t get fixed this quarter, what happens?”
A sales rep will say, “Is this something you’re looking to improve?”
Both sound nice. But one actually makes the buyer think. The other keeps the conversation… comfortable.
And comfortable deals don’t close. They just hang around.
What you can do — don’t push your team to be aggressive. Just get them to ask clearer questions. Even one line after a demo like, “What happens if you don’t move forward?” can shift the tone of the whole deal.
Third mistake is slowing things down with uncertainty.
You’ll say, “Yeah, we can do that,” or “No, that won’t work.”
Your sales team says, “I’ll check and get back to you.”
Which is fair… but now the deal has entered the famous “internal discussion” phase — on both sides.
Fix here is simple — give your team boundaries. What they can approve on the call, where they can be flexible, and where they actually need to check.
I worked with a founder in IT services who did just this — basic rules on pricing and scope. Their back-and-forth dropped almost immediately.
So if your deals move faster when you’re involved, it’s not luck.
It’s small moments inside the call — what you focus on, how direct you are, and how quickly you move things forward.
That’s what your team needs to pick up.
If you’re building a B2B software company and want your sales to move with the same clarity and speed you bring, do reach out to me on LinkedIn.
