Have you ever asked yourself why more people don't buy from you? If you've ever been in sales or marketing, you've likely invested time and money into this question as well: Do you provide a product or service that there is a genuine demand for? Have you ever read a sales or marketing book to find some strategies? They likely recommended a revolutionary idea like, "an elevator pitch, an ROI conversation, or marketing content that builds value." Effective as these ideas may be, they all have one common element that will limit their effectiveness and hinder your ability to convert leads to customers.

Sound pessimistic?

It's not a pessimistic mindset-it's simply an understanding of why a typical sales process, conversation, talk track, or marketing piece, inappropriately speaks in the language of a seller instead of uncovering the language of your buyer. The trick is to learn how to connect buyers and sellers. Throughout this article, we will uncover why even the best sales people will typically plateau at a conversion rate between 10 percent and 20 percent of the leads they are given or acquire.

These limitations exist, not because leads are not interested in what you're selling, but because you're following a sales process, while they are following a buying process. This creates a situation where you're speaking a very different language than your prospects, and while they sound similar, they difference in their effectiveness is massive.