You’re not losing clients because you’re bad at sales.

You’re losing them in the first five minutes… without even realizing it.

That “friendly” small talk? That go-to “tell me about your business” question?
That moment where you jump in to relate?

Yeah… those might be the very things breaking trust. And the wild part?

They all feel like the right thing to do. Let’s fix that. 😏

⸻

Episode Summary

You’re showing up to sales calls, being kind, friendly, and helpful…

…and still not closing as many clients as you should.

Here’s the deal: trust isn’t built through good vibes alone. It’s built through intentional conversations.

In this episode, Brooke breaks down four common sales call mistakes that quietly chip away at trust—often in the first few minutes of the call.

From the polite small talk loop to the classic “tell me about your business” opener, these habits feel harmless… but they leave your potential client feeling unsure, disconnected, or even resistant.

The good news? Once you see them, you can fix them.
And when you do, your calls feel more natural, more focused, and a whole lot more effective.

Because sales doesn’t have to be sleazy—but it does need structure.

⸻

What You’ll Learn

• Why small talk alone doesn’t build trust (and what to do instead)
• The difference between being friendly and being strategic
• How “trying too hard” to connect can backfire on sales calls
• The subtle way you might be making the conversation about you (oops 😬)
• Why “tell me about your business” can signal a lack of preparation
• How to avoid unintentionally sabotaging your calls
• The mindset shift from “winging it” to leading with intention

⸻

Resources Mentioned

Set Expectations Podcast Episodes

1. https://buildingmomentum.info/how-to-start-a-sales-call/
2. https://buildingmomentum.info/sales-calls-bad-examples/
3. https://buildingmomentum.info/how-to-set-sales-call-expectations/

First Establish Rapport Podcast Episode

• https://buildingmomentum.info/sales-rapport-not-closing-deals/

⸻

Join the Conversation / Subscribe

If you’re ready to stop guessing your way through sales calls and start leading them with confidence (without feeling pushy), I’ve got you.

Grab more episodes, tools, and support right here:
https://buildingmomentum.info/matcha

⸻

Connect with Brooke on LinkedIn

Want more no-fluff sales guidance that still feels like you?

Come hang out on LinkedIn:
https://linkedin.com/in/brooke-greening

⸻

You don’t have to be a jerk to be good at sales. But you do have to be intentional. Here’s to valuing your customers—and making more sales.

4 Sales Call Mistakes That Kill Trust (And Cost You Clients) Chapters

00:00 Why Small Talk Can Hurt Your Sales Calls
00:40 Welcome to Sippin’ Matcha & Helping You Make More Sales
02:37 The SERVICE Sales Framework for Better Sales Conversations
03:21 Why Being Friendly Isn’t the Same as Building Rapport
04:05 Mistake #1: The Polite Small Talk Loop
05:24 Why Small Talk Doesn’t Build Trust
06:10 Mistake #2: Forced Connection on Sales Calls
07:19 Why Prospects Feel Resistance When You Try Too Hard
09:30 Mistake #3: The Accidental Hijack
10:42 How Making It About You Costs You Trust
11:35 Use the 70/30 Rule to Keep Prospects Talking
12:55 Mistake #4: “Tell Me About Your Business”
13:22 Why Generic Sales Questions Hurt Your Credibility
14:22 How These Rapport Mistakes Sabotage Sales Calls
15:33 Quick Gut Check: Which Sales Call Mistake Do You Make?
16:17 Take the Sales Conversation Assessment
17:11 What to Say Instead on Your Next Sales Call
17:42 Subscribe for More Human-First Sales Tips

4 Sales Call Mistakes That Kill Trust (and Cost You Clients) Transcript

Brooke Greening: All right, so I'm going to say this with love. Small talk may be hurting you more than you think because if you approach your sales conversations with just a little bit of chitchat, you're not building trust, but you might be creating some resistance.

We share this all the time, but literally 3% of the population trust sales professionals at this point, and this is one of the reasons why, like we're either known as manipulators or we're there for being super friendly and sneaky and whatnot, and that they know that and they don't want that.

And so when we say, tell me about your business, we're actually saying, I know nothing about your business.

And I didn't do any work to figure out anything. About your business. And so that's not good.

Scott Greening: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales where in about the time that it takes you to enjoy your matcha or coffee of choice. Brooke Greening, our resident sales coach, gives you some great advice on how to make more sales while at the same time valuing people and as we bring her in today.

If we've got some bad, we've got some bad news. Oh

Brooke Greening: no.

Scott Greening: You are leaving our family today.

Brooke Greening: Yes. That sounds very dramatic. I'm not leaving permanently. Oh, but I am. I am leaving. I am leaving. Tonight actually, I am flying to La Crosse, Wisconsin. So yeah, looking forward to it.

Scott Greening: I'm glad to hear it's not a permanent thing. That would be a little awkward to share that moment with the world and sad on multiple ways.

But you are going to La Crosse Wisconsin because of why?

Brooke Greening: Yeah, so I am going to be working with some sales team members with Compeer Financial, so they're an ag lending group in Wisconsin and and in other states as well, but in the Midwest. And so they asked me to come and so training them for a few hours in our service framework.

Looking forward to it.

Scott Greening: Yeah, so just in case you're wondering like, does Brooke ever talk to people other than on the podcast and have this great advice? Yeah, she does. She's going and training this team, and then actually next week it's not, you're shifting your hats and you're not doing sales, but you're doing a little bit of marketing in Nashville.

Brooke Greening: Yeah, so StoryBrand is flying me out and I'm working because I'm certified through StoryBrand. I have been for five years. And I'm part of their training team and help onboard new guides and all of that. But this time I am flying and we're going to be working with established businesses and helping them with their marketing, specifically their sound bites and how to be able to talk about their business.

Scott Greening: Yeah. And so we've been talking the last, few episodes on our SERVICE sales framework, your service sales framework, and mm-hmm. Last time we started talking about establishing rapport and we defined that as creating connection and relevance to someone's business quickly. And that with this, we want someone to feel seen.

We want them to feel understood and safe enough to be honest, which all sounds great. And I'm going to guess most teachable listening are like, yeah, I'm on board for that and I'm doing that, but they're maybe getting something wrong. So where are we? Where am I getting things wrong in our approach to establishing rapport?

Brooke Greening: Yes, there is nothing wrong with some small talk, and there's nothing wrong with a little bit of chit chat and just being polite and friendly. People really do appreciate that. But if that is the only thing that we are doing, we are not establishing rapport in a way that's helping them to make a connection and relevance to their business quickly, and so we're just actually being polite and it doesn't lead anywhere.

Scott Greening: Okay, so that sounds awful. Um, I mean, not being polite, we want to be polite, but the not leading any, anywhere. What does it actually look like for these things to be true? What are the common approaches that people take that have this building rapport that doesn't go anywhere?

Brooke Greening: Yes. So the first one I'm going to talk about is called the "Polite Small Talk Loop." And so this is the classic Hey, how are you? I'm good. How's the weather? What's going on over there? We're just, it's not bad, but again, it's like this small talk and it's in a loop because nobody really knows where they're supposed to go after that.

Scott Greening: Yeah. And then at some point it just kind of like. Dies out and gets awkward. And it's like, all right where do we go? And the reality is that's not, like when you're on those conversations, they're not life changing. They're not really a deep connection. And sometimes it starts like, 'cause we just have to make sure the Zoom connection is working or it's just a cultural norm to, it's a way to say hello hi, like, how you doing?

And that's fine. But

Brooke Greening: if it, yeah, no, I'm never saying don't do that. That would be really awkward. Like we don't just launch into what we're saying on a sales call and we're always like, can you hear me? Is your mic on? Those things just happen, but we don't stay there. And sometimes that's what happens.

You're like, Hey, how are you? Okay, let's get down to business. And we've, we're going to miss a huge piece of it.

Scott Greening: All right, so what is the danger? Like where does this go? Why is this so dangerous? Or make it more of a danger than just everybody does it and it's not that meaningful?

Brooke Greening: Yeah, so the basic breakdown is if we're in that small polite talk loop, we don't have any depth, we don't have any direction, and there's no connection to why they're there.

At that point, we're not building any relevance to their business and connection, and that's literally the goal of what we're trying to do when we establish rapport the right way.

Scott Greening: Yeah. Most people aren't on sales calls to make new friends. Right. So we don't want to do there. So we don't want to just stay.

It's great to be polite, but if that's the only way that you're building rapport, there's a disconnect. So that's the first one, this polite small ta small talk loop. What's the, mm-hmm. What's another example of where people kind of get off track into non-effective rapport building?

Brooke Greening: Yeah, so we're going to, we're kind of talking about the pendulum. So on one side, we're all the way over here and we're doing everything we can to not be salesy or manipulative or pushy, and we're just trying to have a regular conversation, but it's not leading us anywhere. It's not leading our customer anywhere.

Then we're swinging all the way over here, and that's when we call it like the forced connection, and that's when we're trying really, really hard. To be able to make some sort of connection. So like literally, and people say it to us all the time, oh, you're in Philadelphia. I love Philadelphia. I have a friend who lives there, or, Hey, I want to go visit Philadelphia sometime.

You're just trying too hard at that point.

Scott Greening: Yeah. And I know for me, this is my personal pet peeve is when people, I know they're a salesperson, I know they're talking to dozens of people a week or whatever, and yeah, I know you don't really care and you like, okay, it's nice, but, and then so it just drives me crazy because it's sort of like, Hey, we're trying to be buddy buddy.

And it, it feels ugh. Why, why do I feel that? Why is this dangerous for people?

Brooke Greening: Yeah. Well, it actually, so very typical to like what you're experiencing, they feel that resistance because people know they're very savvy and so, but just comes across as like you're trying to fill space. It's trying to come across that you're trying too hard and they know that.

And then that will create resistance. We share this all the time, but literally 3% of the population trust sales professionals at this point, and this is one of the reasons why, like we're either known as manipulators or we're there for being super friendly and sneaky and whatnot, and that they know that and they don't want that.

And so it's not building the connection that we want and it's, there's absolutely no relevance to their business at this point. And then it just gets awkward. 'cause then you're just like, well, yeah, yeah, you should come. It's. It's great. You got the Liberty Bell. There's a crack in it. Like there's not a lot of ways to go from there.

And so again I know people are going to be listening to this and they're going to be like, dang, Brooke. Like, why are you so against being friendly? I'm not, I love talking, I love being able to talk with people and strangers and saying hello and all of that. I am just telling you, if you only stick in that realm and then we try to go in.

To how we can help them and what's going on. They're not trusting us. We have to connect relevance to their business quickly, and this does not do it. Yeah, I can maybe only sort of think of one time in my life when anyone's had a different reaction than Brooke is one of the friendliest people that I know like you.

Scott Greening: For people to hear this and to be like, oh man, she's just business, business. No, you have this crazy ability to connect with people really well and people are always so grateful for how friendly you are. But I think part of that is because you've built trust by being purposeful and you're committed to not manipulating people and not wasting time.

Yeah. So we've got two examples so far. We had the. The sales the small talk loop. Mm-hmm. And then we had the over connection. Is there another example that, that you have?

Brooke Greening: Yes. I call this the accidental hijack. And so this actually, my daughter Torah does an incredible job of this one.

So we're going to look at more of a, just a regular example, and then we'll tie it into what it looks like in sales. But the accidental hijack is when someone else is talking, and then you come in and you make it all about you. So at our dinner table. We have what's called happy crabby. This started in COVID.

This was a long time ago when we started doing this, and we literally say, okay, what was a happy moment that you had today? And what was a crabby moment that you had today? It's just a great way to be able to talk, to let the kids be able to share things. And so what will happen is our sweet little Bizzy and we say Sweet, but.

Firecracker, she's five. And so she's going to start telling us about her crabby, which is probably that I didn't give her the right crackers in the lunch or whatever the case is. And then Torah torpedoes the conversation and is like, oh, Bizzy. I know I don't like when mom does this, or this happens and da da.

And then she overpowers and we just remind her, Hey honey. This is not your turn. Life is not all about you. And so we say it lovingly, we can all do it. That's why we call it like the accidental hijack. But it's literally if your customer is saying, Hey, you know what I've worked with this, I've, I'm in this situation, or this is what's going on.

And then we jump in and we're like, oh man, I've worked with so many clients like that and this is what we did and this is what's going on. And then it's now it's your story instead of theirs.

Scott Greening: Yeah, and I know you talk a lot about sort of your 70 30 rule and wanting to have the customer, the potential client that's on the call or in the conversation with, you talk 70% of the time and you only talk 30% of the time.

And when you do this, when you accidentally, and it usually it's motivated out of excitement, it's motivated out of good things, but now they're listening to you. Instead of them talking and them sharing and

Brooke Greening: yeah,

Scott Greening: then we have lost that rapport building.

Brooke Greening: Yeah, you absolutely have. Because then it just goes back to them thinking, okay, this is just like every other conversation I've ever had.

And then the breakdown happens because the focus shifts to. They're going to share less. That's just our human nature. If someone else is talking, then we're going to back off a little bit and you're going to Ms. Key information. The whole point of establishing rapport is yes, so we can be able to build connection and relevance to their business quickly.

It's so we can start to take that wall down so they can be able to trust us, and now when they do, they're able to share things that are really important. But if we're the one that's talking the whole time, we're missing a lot of things.

Scott Greening: Yeah, and I was just, I was thinking as you were starting out there, like I think I'd like to go back in life where.

My biggest problem was my mom didn't give me the right kind of crackers. That would might be nice. But alright, so we've had three, three examples. We talked actually in our Set Expectations episodes, which if you haven't heard those, we encourage you to go back and check out the previous episodes.

We'll maybe put the link in the show notes here. But we talked about an almost their example that people, mm-hmm. Often default to, that's actually not that great. So what was that that we were talking about? We said we were going to bring it back into this conversation.

Brooke Greening: Yes.

Scott Greening: What is it?

Brooke Greening: It's when we say, tell me about your business.

That is the one where people are thinking, yeah, but I'm asking them. But I am saying we're putting all of it on them and when we are actually trying to build real rapport and we're going to talk about this next week in regards to how to do that, there is some homework involved. And so when we say, tell me about your business, we're actually saying, I know nothing about your business.

And I didn't do any work to figure out anything. About your business. And so that's not good. It's generic and it's showing them that you haven't really done any homework and that's important to people. 'cause that will start to separate you from your competitor, which we'll talk about later.

Scott Greening: Yeah, and I think as I listen and I hear you and reflect on what we're thinking, like there's a pattern that develops for most people and most people you interact with are good people.

They're good humans. Oh yeah. They're not trying to be manipulative and all of that. And if. Probably at this point those people that are out there are not listening to this podcast. So if you're still here, like you're wanting to be a good person. That Right. That's great. So like these rapport mistakes come out of trying to be liked or maybe you're just trying to fill space because you don't quite understand the structure of a sales call and those aren't bad. We're not calling you an awful person. But no, neither of those build trust. Right, And shockingly, oh, go ahead.

Brooke Greening: No, I was just going to say they're not bad. But it is a way that you sabotage your sales calls and you don't even necessarily know it. These first few minutes are really important, and sometimes we don't really look at it that way.

And so I'm not, I'm not out here just saying, you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong. 'cause that's not incredibly motivating. But I am telling you, like when you start changing these pieces in your sales conversations, you'll be amazed. At how many more sales you will make, and more importantly, how you're able to connect with your client in a much deeper way to be able to truly serve them and to be able to help them with what they're looking for.

So it's not bad, it's not that they're bad at sales, but you are sabotaging your sales calls if we do stuff like this.

Scott Greening: Yeah. And shocking for you. What? What you're really aiming at with all these things is. Like intentionality yeah, don't just do things because you don't have a plan. Don't just wing it.

Brooke Greening: Right?

Scott Greening: Don't just try to feel fill space. 'cause that's what culturally like you're supposed to do. Have an intentional plan. Be super friendly and personal. Bull with it, but

Brooke Greening: yes.

Scott Greening: But be intentional.

Brooke Greening: Yeah, exactly. So I want to ask you guys, I want to give you like a quick gut check. I just want to see which one do you feel like you are.

So as you're listening, just ask yourself, am I the small talker? Am I the over relator or am I the, tell me about your business opener. So do I get in this like small talk loop and I don't know exactly how to be able to move it forward? Do I try too hard to be able to connect with people? Or am I telling me about your business?

Those. Just ask yourself that because most people land in one of those categories.

Scott Greening: Yeah most people do. And maybe from conversation to conversation you're trying to find your voice and it may be a one or one on one call and one a different one on the next call. But if you happen to be sitting here and you're listening to Brooke and you're getting this great advice and you're like, oh, maybe I might have a problem.

I'm not even sure. I'd encourage you to take Brooke's sales conversation assessment. It takes somewhere between three to five, 10 minutes, depending on your how level what level of analysis you do for each question. But what you'll get at the end of that is a quick snapshot of how you are intentionally structuring or maybe not so intentionally structuring your sales conversations.

And you'll get some good introductory advice on how to fix that so that you can improve your conversations to be intentional. And to make more sales.

Brooke Greening: Yeah.

Scott Greening: Brooke, what, so I'm sorry, go ahead.

Brooke Greening: No, go right ahead.

Scott Greening: Mm-hmm. I was just going to, I was just going to say, where are we? Where are we headed from here?

Brooke Greening: Yes. So next time we are going to get very practical and I'm going to tell you exactly what to do to be able to build rapport without it feeling weird or. Forced. We're going to help you to know what to do in every sales conversation, no matter who you're talking to. So whether you are in finance, whether you're in marketing, whether you're an attorney, like we're going to help you to know exactly what to say, to build rapport, that'll make a difference, that'll help you to connect and to build relevance with them quickly.

Scott Greening: Great. So we look forward to that. A great way for you to get that information next time is to make sure that you've subscribed, make sure you like, make sure you comment or leave a review. Those are all great things that you can do, and we want you to get the good way to do this on our next episode.

So until then, enjoy your matcha and have fun making more sales.

Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.