Steve Martin, author of Heavy Hitter Selling, has this crazy news story posted in his blog:

Minor league baseball pitcher John Odom was recently involved in one of the craziest baseball trades of all time. He was traded from the Calgary Vipers to the Laredo Broncos for 10 baseball bats!!! The 26-year-old right-hander said of the trade, "I'm still in shock from this phenomenon, I guess. I don't know how to describe it. It's mind-boggling."

"Professional baseball players who continually make mistakes are demoted to teams in the minor leagues," explains Martin. "These obscure teams play in small towns across America. In the slang of baseball, the players are called 'bush leaguers.' Sales also has its share of bush leaguers, people who make the following common mistakes:"

1. They talk too much on a sales call and don't listen to the customer enough.

2. They present the same pitch in the same way to every customer.

3. They don't know their customer or product well enough to drive account strategy.

4. They assume information they don't know, thereby taking the wrong action.

5. They fidget with many accounts and don't focus on the winnable ones.

6. They don't put themselves in the position of being their own customer.

7. They don't take the time to continuously analyze their performance.

8. They don't understand how to marshal their resources or use their manager.

9. They set unrealistic customer expectations or make commitments that their product or company can't fulfill.

10. They expect to win the deal without a coach (internal champion inside the account) or think they have a coach when they don't.

Examine your own sales process and make sure you're not making any of these rookie mistakes -- or you may find your customers trading you for 10 baseball bats!

Steve Martin is the author of the critically acclaimed book about enterprise sales, Heavy Hitter Selling: How Successful People Use Language and Intuition to Persuade Customers to Buy. Learn more at www.heavyhitterwisdom.com.