Why Can’t I Talk About Money In Sales? (How To Be More Confident)

INTRO:

Rob  00:00

How is it that somebody charged so much? How is that possible?

Lane  00:03

I guess they’re better salesperson than I am.

Rob  00:05

No, I don’t think so. I think part of it is is they don’t have that limiting belief of, Oh, I can only charge this much. everybody.

Intro Music

Show Start

Rob  0:25

Welcome to The Slow Pitch Podcast and I see Lane over there. How’s it going?

Lane  00:30

Doing great, Rob, how are you today?

Rob  00:32

Doing well, I’m doing well. I understand we have another question that came in. Is that correct?

Lane  00:39

Yes, absolutely. We’ve received a question via text message this time, from area code 919, which looks to be North Carolina. Wow. Since we didn’t get a name with the question, Rob, I’m going to give you the choice of referring to the listener as Venus or Frasier and I can explain if you’re curious.

Rob  00:56

I am curious why Venus or Frazier?

Lane  00:58

Well, the state of North Carolina the state carnivorous plant is the Venus flytrap. Uh huh. Okay. And and the state Christmas tree is the Frasier for so are we going with with Venus flytrap or Frasier for today?

Rob  01:13

I let’s let’s go with Frasier. I kind of like Frasier.

Lane  01:15

Alright, Frasier wrote us saying, I have a dirty little secret…

Rob  01:20

I changed my mind its Venus.

Lane  01:23

Venus writes, I have a dirty little secret. And I’m embarrassed to say this out loud. I’m a salesperson who cannot stand talking about money. It makes me deeply uncomfortable. I’ll do it for my job, but it’s always with a pit in my stomach. The weird part is I love everything else about sales, meeting new people, talking with them and making great connections, learning about other people’s businesses and helping solve their problems. But when it comes to talking about the financials, the cost of our service, I just cannot, am I going to be a terrible salesperson forever? Do I have a chance? Or am I never going to make it?

Rob  01:59

Alright, Venus? Well, that sounds like an interesting question. I don’t think you’re the only one that has this problem. I know I struggled with this every once in a while. And I’m sure everybody else does too at some point in time or another. So hey, if you’re new here, I’m Rob. And I’m Lane. And we are going to talk about money issues. Sorry to label it that way, Venus, but it’s money issues.

V/O  02:24

You’re listening to The Slow Pitch Podcast, a podcast about selling less and closing more.

Rob  02:32

Venus has a dirty little secret. And that simply is being able to talk about money. This is not an easy topic to deal with.

Lane  02:41

Money never is, no.

Rob  02:43

And it’s usually based on something very, very deep and somebodies subconscious. It’s very difficult to deal with. So I’m not a psychologist. Lane. You’re not either, you

Lane  02:52

No, not today. I’m not, not today.

Rob  02:54

Okay, so neither am I. So just know that all the things that I’m talking about are things that we’ve experienced, understood, learned through our lives. And that’s that’s not the base of it. So it could have happened while we were drinking beer someday. And, you know, that could have been where we come up with some of these ideas. But really what honestly, what it comes down to is, this is a an issue with how you look at money more than anything, I think. So what are the first few things that come up to you ln when you when you read this the first time?

Lane  03:22

Well, I can really empathize with Venus because I don’t like talking about the money either. So I really, really feel for for her.

Rob  03:32

Okay. And I, it sounds like we’re gonna put Lane on the couch today.

Lane  03:37

I thought you weren’t a shrink, man.

Rob  03:39

So this is something you’re familiar with as well. Listen, I’ve been there too. So don’t get me wrong. This is everybody has an issue at some point in time. Because here’s the thing, to me. There’s two types of ways to look at this. This is I have a hard time dealing with money at any level in any conversation. And then there’s another one that is I’m comfortable with dealing with money, but not that much money. There’s two different types.

Lane  04:02

I yeah, and I will go I’ll, I can play along with that. Because that’s to me, it’s that much money. Yes. Reading Venus’s message to us, that’s how I’m reading how she feels as well.

Rob  04:17

Okay. So let’s deal with both just in case somebody listening has an issue with one or the other or both. Let’s start with the most basic component, which is I’m not comfortable dealing with money in any, any sort of way other than I know, when I go to the store, whatever the price says, I’m buying it for that price, and that’s good, okay. And even if it’s too much, if I figured out I need to buy it, that’s what it costs I’m gonna buy.

I don’t care how much it costs. And that’s normal. So a lot of people have that. There’s other people that are like, Hey, I know this says it’s $20 but I’m gonna bring it up to the counter and say, Yeah, I don’t I don’t think it’s worth $20 one form or another where they can say there’s a little ding on here or there’s a rip in here. Which can you give it to me for a discount and those people are very comfortable with money usually right?

Yeah, so there’s two sides to that whole thing. So I think my question to Venus would be, in your past, when you were back when you were a little kid, and you were sitting at the table with your family, or when you were walking down the street and something happened, and you’re walking with your mom or dad, and the neighbors had some issue going on, and it was money came up. And you asked the question, hey, how much does that cost? And your parents said back to you, what would they say back to you if you ask that question? Too much, or a lot? Yeah. And is that a very good answer?

Lane  05:35

No,

Rob  05:36

No. Why did they give you that answer? Like, if somebody, let’s say, for example, a neighbor bought a new car, you’re walking, or you’re playing in the street, dad are out there? Wow, that’s a cool looking car. Your mom and dad start talking.

And you five year old kid says, How much does it cost? And we love it. Dad says, Yes. My mom says don’t ask that kind of questions. Why? Can I not ask that question? It’s impolite. It’s impolite. It’s rude. You don’t ask those types of questions that is not right to ask that question. And while that may be true, that little seed planted into your head is the basis more than likely have a lot of that issue?

Because you’ve been told over and over and over again, as a kid? You don’t ask those types of questions. We don’t talk about money. How much does mom make? You don’t ask that question. It’s I make I make enough. That’s it right? You don’t you get you get there is a wall that is put down in front of you as a kid, when money questions come up, and I get it, I get it. But there’s got to be a point where I parent, and I’m not gonna get into how to parent somebody.

But we’re a parent can do some damage by doing that. So sometimes, as a parent, it might be helpful at a certain age, not early, necessarily, because some kids don’t have a filter, filter and start repeating Oh, my mom makes $150,000 whatever, right? So you don’t want that. But but there’s a point of being able to educate your son or daughter to say, Hey, here’s what’s reasonable to expect in terms of money.

So by by setting the example about having a very open and frank conversation about money, and what that means, and how much it takes to make things happen. And they may at first the kid, maybe that’s a lot of money. Yes, it is. But there’s got to be a point, if you’re going to help that kid later on, if they’re going to be in sales, or if they’re gonna have to sell their own self in a product or sale or service that they’re doing, right, that’s gonna make a big difference for them.

So if they can understand the value of money, from a mental standpoint, that’ll make a big difference. But I submit to you that it seems to me when I talk to people, there’s a lot of stuff that happens to us when we were when you’re younger, yeah, around the dinner table out in the street, when you’re dealing with anything that has to do with money. And as a kid, when you ask that question, getting out that wall put down makes you just stop in your tracks. So my guess is Venus probably had this. I don’t know what you think or anything?

Lane  07:57

No, I think that’s a fair bet.

Rob  07:59

Yeah. And I would love to know, hey, Venus, if you’re listening, I would love it. If you would text us and say that was it? Or no, it wasn’t it was something else. Or if you don’t know, that’s okay. I’m just curious, because more than not, I hear that story all the time. So the other side of that coin is I’m comfortable with money, but not that much money. Right? So what is in you don’t have to give me an honest answer. But let’s say what is a lot of money for you Lane, what would be a lot of money for me to charge for you to charge somebody for your services?

Lane  08:28

Too much money to be honest, let’s say $3,000 $3,000?

Rob  08:32

For to charge for the website?

Lane  08:34

Yeah. Or something like that. That’s a pretty simple, simple thing.

Rob  08:37

And what if I told you that the last time I had my website worked on it was $1,000. For the same thing you just described?

Lane  08:46

I think that’s a lot of money.

Rob  08:48

Yeah, but they they charged it?

Lane  08:51

Well, you know, I if if that’s what they’re able to get for their service, then good for them. I you know, that’s

Rob 08:58

So why is it that they’re able to charge for the same service you’re providing for? Let me rephrase that? Why are they able to charge that much more? For something that does the exact same thing? Let’s say no, I didn’t pay $8,000. But let’s say what I told you that and you’re like, well, $8,000 How would you charge that? But somebody out there could write so how is it for the same deliverables? The same piece of whatever equipment, piece of furniture, whatever it is that you’re charging? How much it How is it that somebody can charge so much? How is that possible?

Lane  09:31

I guess they’re better salesperson than I am.

Rob 09:33

No, I don’t think so. I think part of it is is they don’t have that limiting belief of Oh, I can only charge this much. And here’s the thing I’m not saying everybody should go out there and charge willy nilly any number they want because it’s outrageous. Because you better be able to hold up hold you’re on to the deal right? If you charged $10,000 for a website that is 12 pages pretty basic and easy. Will they come back to you ever?

No. Because if they start asking question Are people out Start asking what did you charge get charged? And they find out it was 10 grand, everybody’s like, What? That was like a $1,500 website… Why would you do that? They’re never gonna come back to you, right? But at the same time, there is some value in understanding what the potential client needs by learning about their pains, and understanding what the offset is going to be by fixing this problem.

So if I told you listen, the reason I paid $8,000, and I’m never going to be able to think about this, as you’re asking somebody to just think about this way. If somebody says, I paid $8,000, for my last website, you’re gonna go, oh, wow, that’s a lot, okay. But they’re never going to be able to verbalize the fact that they when they went through the sales process, they ended up asking or getting asked this questions about, well, what are the problems we’re solving, basically.

And we found out that they were being hacked, that there was no response time, the thing was down every once in a while, that they couldn’t get people to email them directly for orders, they couldn’t place orders on the website, whatever that was, all of a sudden, well, I don’t care how much does it cost, I mean, I need my business up and running. And that’s my website is going to drive traffic, it’s gonna drive business. So it’s worth $8,000.

Because you know what I sell $250,000 worth off that website. That’s worth it, right. But if I’m a small business, and I’ve just doing it as my business card, for 8,000 not worth it, right. So there’s a there’s a pain trade off there. And you have to understand those two things, and how they fit together. Because if you don’t understand how they fit together, then you’re going to be charging willy nilly the wrong price way too high.

So I’m not saying your numbers need to be out of whack, and you just make up numbers as you go. And I’m also not saying that you make up these numbers based on the amount of pain somebody has. The goal of doing the pain piece, and understanding how they fit into the numbers is can they afford it, your job in that process, is to determine whether or not they are a good fit, that they can afford you that they’re gonna be able to pay what they’re supposed to pay for the job that’s being done.

So if your job that you’re saying is normally worth $5,000, and they can’t afford $5,000, you’d want to find that out during that conversation of pain, that they don’t have $5,000 worth of product problems, right. Versus later on. We’re going okay, guess what? It’s $5,000. And you’re like, what? I can’t pay that. I don’t know why it’s just a it’s like a business card. Right? Yeah. So that’s, that’s one of those things.

V/O  12:17

Do you have a question about sales? call or text your question at 608-708-SLOW. That’s 608-708-7569. Or you can email them to Questions@TheSlowPitch.com. Now, back to the show.

Rob 12:36

And here’s the other thing that I look at I, in this note, in this text message, I noticed that they say they love everything about sales. They love the meeting the people, they love talking to all making great connections, all of those things. Just out of curiosity Lane, what personality type disc type Do you think they are? What would be your guess?

Lane  12:58

I’m guessing they’re definitely not a “D”? I don’t think they’re a “C”. Nope. So we’re down to an an “I” or an “S”? I’m gonna guess an “S”,

Rob 13:11

I would guess it could be I would guess an “I”. And here’s why. They love everything about sales. Now, what is salespeople usually? What are they? They’re usually like, very outgoing. Yep. Yeah, very much talk, I want to talk to everybody I want to I want to be around people. They like me, they said they’d like meeting new people. And one of these “I”s really are good at our meeting and identifying the new person in the room and making them feel comfortable.

They love talking. They like making great connections. It’s a feeling of connection. Those are typically I personalities. They could be a bit of an S as well. So there’s some elements in there, that could be S’s as well. But because it’s they talk about themselves in the eye versus we, I would tend to slant towards the I only because of that. Now that said, Does that make any impact on their relationship with money? The disc profile? No, it does. No, yeah. None? None whatsoever.

You’d be surprised how every personality type, even a D personality type has the same problem sometimes. Here’s another example. I had another individual who I spoke with one time, who said that they just couldn’t charge more because it didn’t feel right. Yeah. And when they said that, I started asking them questions. And they said, Well, you know, I know my competitors charge more, but I really don’t want to I don’t want to charge that much.

It seems outrageous for the amount of work that it is. And I while I agree with that, they just decided that that’s all that they want to pull out of life, if you will. They want to, it’s all they want to do is make that much work versus what and that’s totally fine. There’s nothing wrong with that, versus the other mentality that other people have, which is I there’s so much abundance, so much money, so much abundance of everything out there.

It doesn’t matter what I charge because in the grand scheme of things, it’s it’s not going to impact anything. Other than me and another person, okay, that’s okay. As long as the line everything lines up in terms of, they need the service, it’s offsetting the expense, and that they can see the return on their investment is worthwhile for them. They can afford it as a as a qualifying piece, right? It doesn’t really matter.

And there’s no limit to what they can do in life. That’s their mentality. And so sometimes people have a, I say, there’s that author, Carol Dweck, she wrote a book about developing a growth mindset. And the concept behind it is as you either have a closed mindset, or a growth mindset. And it’s very similar to the I’m open to the world, either the world have an abundance, or there’s not. And there’s different nuances that she has that maybe this other doesn’t have it.

But what she basically says is, listen, you have your own world, whatever you want to do. But a lot of there’s some people that say, Well, I can only do this, I can only do that, and their whole mentality of everything I can, you know, I can only type so fast, I can only read so fast. And then there’s other people that go, I can do anything, like you just put me in front of it, I’ll learn and I’ll figure it out, I can do this.

And so to me in sales in this whole money mentality, this is all one component. But but it’s all goes together with what is your mindset like? And what is it that’s holding you back? Typically, it’s still trends back to your family, to how your parents talk to you about money? And what does that mean to how you look at money? Now, it impacts it a lot, believe it or not,

Lane  16:33

That’s amazing. Let’s circle back to Venus’s question. She had a big button there that says when it comes to talking about financials, and the cost of the service, she just can’t how do we help her?

Rob  16:44

Yeah, that that is the question. So bringing it back to the financials. The key point, and this is kind of where I got over my concept of money being an issue for me holding me back, was understanding that when you talk about pain with folks going through all of that, and understanding what their issues are, what they’re trying to solve, what they’re trying to gain, whatever that is, when you get into that pain conversation, and you associate dollars to that.

So just by asking them simple questions like, well, how much does that cost? You? Or, you know, is that gonna make any difference on your financials? As it is? Those questions are not about your money, right? So it’s about their money. So it’s a little easier for a lot of people to talk about. So if you’re asking those questions, well, how does how does that impact your bottom line? Or how does that impact your your food costs? Or how does it impact your your margin?

Or how does that whatever that is, get that back to that conversation where you’re getting them to understand or you’re getting better understand what the dollar amount that’s associated with this issue? And are they qualified? Once you’ve gone through all of that, now, you should have some confidence that it’s worth their investment, because their pains are going to be too high, without your good or service. Right? Right. Right.

So if if they’re trying to buy, let’s say, you’re buying a nice bed, and the bed is not very comfortable, then it doesn’t matter how cheap it is, if it’s not comfortable, I’m not getting a night’s sleep, period, end of story, right? So I want to make sure that I’m selling the right thing for what they need to solve. Now, when I’m going to the point of talking about how much you’re good or service, your product service or anything costs from an investment standpoint, when you talk about budget, now you just need to think about what you’re offsetting, and it should make that feel a bit more comfortable.

Because by doing that, you’re saying, well, they of course they can afford it, because look how much it’s going to help them. Right. It’s going to be helping them it’s not hurting them. And I think there’s a component of the money concept where you feel like I’m hurting somebody by trying to take this much money from them, right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And it’s not matter of you know, it, listen, if if you go through the pain pieces, and they’re not saving enough or offsetting enough, and the return isn’t high enough, you really shouldn’t be selling your goods or service it.

If that’s the case, then you should be saying, I don’t see why we should be doing this job. I don’t think we should be doing business together. And we’re not a good fit. Yeah, it doesn’t sound like it’s a good fit at all. And if you say that to that person, that we’re not a good fit, and they insist that they are a good fit, and that you do in fact need to go forward and that they do want to buy it. Now, what do you do?

Lane  19:26

Yeah, that’s a that’s a great question. Because I, to me, I’m like, Okay, well, I don’t know that we’re a great fit. But if, if you’re sure are able to, you know, I would probably just go ahead and take the money.

Rob  19:38

You and you could and here’s what I have before you do that. I think the last step before that is if they say well, I understand that but this is I know we need it and this is how I know it is that’s what it costs. I want to buy it. I would almost ask the question, what made you decide, even though this wasn’t from a return from a, from all of that, what we talked about how Did you come up with that decision?

Because they may say, Well, what you don’t know is there’s an investor over here and they want to, and this is what we this is why it is. They may say, Well, because we’re gonna take this, we’re gonna do this. And then all the money we’re saving, we’re actually putting it over here instead of there, whatever those things are. They have their own reasons, right? Yeah, yeah. If they don’t give you a good reason that I would come back to them and say, Are you are you sure you want to do this?

Because it doesn’t sound to me. Like, that makes a ton of sense from my side. And usually, when I get to this situation, when it comes right down to signing the check, it doesn’t happen, because the realistic part of it is, is it doesn’t fit. I don’t want to do that, too. I don’t want to go there if we don’t need to. They may say, yeah, maybe I better wait. Yeah, yeah. So but understand by doing that, you’re gaining a lot of trust. You’re really letting them make the decision that’s right for them.

And it’s making them make the decision and not you, you’re not forcing it. And anytime you’re trying to force a decision. So if you came back right away and say, Okay, well, let’s get started, then there’s an odds are, there’s a chance that you could lose that sale at the point of signature, right, right, or getting the check. And if you wait, by pulling it along, and asking those other questions, you’ll actually get them to make a decision one way or the other, it doesn’t matter.

Because either way is good. If they aren’t a good fit, they need to make that decision, so that you’re not wasting your time down the road, or that you’re trying to get money that they don’t have, or they make the decision to buy all that makes a lot of sense, right? So then it makes it makes it sense for them. That’s the key. So when you when, when you approach the financials with somebody, you always have to approach it from the pain side, what’s right for them?

And if it doesn’t make sense, call it don’t tell them don’t, this is not the right thing for you, and then get into that conversation of why they think it should be, because then they’ll you’ll have a better understand of what’s really happening. So I think your other question was, am I gonna be a terrible salesperson forever? I don’t think you are. I think you’re right for asking the question. I think you’re normal. That’s not unusual. I, I feel that way sometimes. And sometimes when there’s really big projects, I’ve had it where I’ve had really big projects coming front of me, where I have to price something out.

And I’m like, wow, I cannot believe this cost this much. That’s what I’m thinking. And on the client side, they’re like, dude, you’re low. And I’m like, why? I’m low. Oh, my low. How is that? Well, what are they doing over on that other side with? Yeah, yeah, I’ve got two other quotes. And they’re all twice the price and like, Whoa, okay, well, I messed that up, didn’t I? Right. So that’s my money issue sometimes, and it happens, it happens to the best of us.

But if once you understand it, then and you see that happen to yourself, go back, figure out what caused it, and realize, alright, I need to make sure that that doesn’t happen again. What are the where’s the point that I made the mistake, and let’s work on that piece. And to me, I feel like it’s forgetting about what happened to me in the past, as a kid when I was told Don’t worry about the money. It’s not your business. It’s you know, it’s it’s a lot of money.

Don’t worry about it, right? To know, this is this is all stuff that we can control. And this is all stuff that there’s an abundance of it doesn’t really matter. And if it’s right for the client is right for the client. So yes, you have a chance and you are going to make it so don’t worry about it. Venus, you’ll be fine.

V/O  23:21

Thank you for listening to The Slow Ptich. Slow down and close more.