Can you relate to this? You're looking across your desk into the face of a couple who would be perfect clients for you. You know what you can provide is perfect for them and you're 99% sure they will accept your proposal. Then something goes wrong. They walk, and you don't know why. Sound familiar?

We've all been there, some of us more often than others. Worse, many sales people will continue to face that situation, and not understand what continues to go wrong. The good news is, as disappointing as those situations are, they serve as outstanding learning experiences. They also provide rare opportunities to examine and improve the way we connect with our prospects and clients. Over the past eight years, we've analyzed this exact, specific point in the sales process. We now understand how professionals screw up sales meetings – and how to fix it.

We believe that you can't fix something until you know it's broken, so let's begin with the 12 ways we screw up sales meetings and see how to fix them: