Why Your Perception of Money Matters in Sales and How to Change It

Rob  00:08

Welcome back, everybody to The Slow Pitch. Today we’re going to talk about how do you think about money? And how do you change that mindset. I know we spoke about this little while ago with Ina, however, I think there were some pieces in there that we should probably cover that wasn’t quite in there. And I want to add some value to that. So, let’s get started.

V/O  00:28

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

Rob  00:36

So, your perception of money impacts the way you sell in more ways than you probably realize. So, if you’ve been around a while, and you’ve been selling for a while, you know, sometimes there’s the parts of the conversation that get a little bit uncomfortable. And if you’re one of those like myself, who you end up having this conversation about how much is going to cost and you feel like, boy, this is more than I would spend on that this is probably a good conversation, or a good episode for you to listen to. What I want you to think about is, first off, let’s talk a little bit about your concept of money. So, concept of money comes down to this, you know, what is it that is a lot of money to you. So, a lot of money to you might be $100,000 a year to make. And some of you making a lot of money would mean, I make a million dollars in a year. And some of you would be Hey, you know, if I don’t make 5 million in a year, it’s not enough money, right? So how does that how can we know that everybody’s got a different number? And how come? How come those things vary by person and can vary over your lifetime? So that’s one piece that I want you to think about.

Rob  01:38

First, I want you to figure out what is your limiting number? And I know you’re like, well, I don’t I can make as much as I want. Yeah, you can’t except if you sit down with somebody, and you start having a conversation about how much something’s going to cost. And they say to you, “Boy, that seems like a lot of money.” And your mind says to you right away? Yeah, I know, it’s a lot more than I would charge or yeah, I know, it’s probably more than I should be charging, then you have already reached your limit. So, part of this episode is to find where your limitations are, and move past those. It’s not an easy task. But we’re gonna try to do that here is thinking about how much is too much money for you. Why is that amount? Too much? Whether it’s to charge or to make whatever that dollar amount is? Why is that where it’s at? In other words, for your product or service, you would feel comfortable charging half that price, then I want you to think about okay, why is that number, the number that’s important to you? And why is it that that number that’s higher than what you’re comfortable with? Something that you would say, Boy, I don’t know if I would pay that much? Or is too much to charge for your value? If you’re selling it for yourself? Or you’re selling your own stuff?

Rob  02:43

Why is that the limit. And I want you to really think long and hard because here’s what I think might be causing it. When you grew up, you probably grew up in a household that either one of these things may apply. One, maybe you just didn’t talk freely about money. Maybe money was not a conversation you guys got into in your family? In other words, did your parents tell you okay, here’s our budget for the month or for the week or your budget? Did you guys talk about numbers and budgets? Did you talk about money that how much people made or how much your family made? Most people do not talk about that. And so when they don’t talk about that, as a kid, there’s a reason they don’t talk about it as a kid. It’s because the parents don’t feel comfortable talking about those numbers either. And if you grew up hearing the phrase, hey, listen, we don’t ask questions about how much people make or we don’t ask your neighbor, you know how much that car costs. Or if you heard the phrase, hey, you know what your mom and dad are talking to you. And they say, hey, money doesn’t grow on trees. Or if you hear this simple phrase of, you know, what we can’t afford that these are all of the phrases that you heard, as a youngster, as a child, as a person who was growing up and being impressed upon that this dollar amount is too high. So, it’s a limiting belief, if you can recognize any one of those phrases, and you recognize that, you know, it probably was more than it was supposed to be, but we actually could have figured out a way to afford that, then you have a way of working through that yourself. But if you if you look at this and say, hey, this is the phrase that I’ve heard, if you heard the phrase, we can’t afford that, how did that make you feel inside? And why was that phrase, something that stopped them from being able to move forward? Let’s think about this way. If your parents had the mindset of, you know, we have so much money or if we don’t have the money right now, we can figure out how to make more money. If you’re good salesperson, your attitude should start to be I kind of print money. That’s kind of should be your attitude, like I help people buy and I kind of print money. That’s really what your mindset should think about you think like, you should start to think of your job as how do I print more money, okay, because money is just an object. It has nothing to do with anything. It’s you are a value that’s being placed on a particular product or service. So, you should be able to look at it and say, I can print money anytime I want, right? But if you grew up in this household that says, hey, we can’t afford that, or money doesn’t grow on trees, you’re never going to say to yourself, let me just print more money. And I don’t mean that in the illegal way. I mean, that like, how do you print more money by selling more, and can you sell more, because you have the ability to with your time, or are you limited with your time, in which case, you do need to raise your price, right, because you don’t have enough time, you need to re increase your price supply and demand Simple as that. But if you’re really getting into your root cause of it, and it’s about how your parents it put into your head, that money is not something that just everybody can have. And it’s just doesn’t come to you that you’ve been trained or taught incorrectly. If you look at life and say there is value in things that you’re doing, and that other people will buy that from you, or what you’re selling is important to them. And there’s a reason for them to buy, then there should be no limitation. So, what it really comes down to is having the mindset of number one selling correctly, so you’re not pushing people to buy stuff that they shouldn’t be buying, you’re not making them feel like they have to buy it or there’s no high pressure, you should be doing that the right way. But the result of that should be you should be able to make as much money as you feel you should be able to make that the market will bear that everything is it from a legal standpoint, and that you feel comfortable saying this is an appropriate number without really gouging people, right? You can’t go to the extreme and say, well, this is a million dollars, when it’s really you know, $5 item, right? It just doesn’t make sense. And you’ll never be able to get away with that because people won’t allow that. But if your mindset is that if you’re solving their problem, and that their value in what you are doing is important to them. And as accurate for them, they will buy and you’re technically you’re honestly just kind of printing money then Right? So, I think the best way to look at is when you start to look at money, and how your perception of money can change over your life, but also can change within any sale, you have to start to think about, okay, I can make as much money as a as they want. There’s no limitation, there’s no finite number of money, if you had to make a billion, billion, billion, billions, you could do it if you had the right product service, all the other stuff. If you really wanted to do that, there’s nothing holding you back. Nothing’s holding somebody like an Elon Musk, or Microsoft or any, you know, think about all the founders of all these major companies, nothing stopped them from making that kind of money. And you can do that too. So, you have to realize it’s okay to grow up with more money. And to make more money than you grew up with or your parents grew up with. It’s okay to ask for more money when the value is there if you haven’t been pricing things correctly. So remember that as you’re selling. Also, remember, all of these rules that you grew up with, that are related to this money are kind of arbitrary, in terms of what your limitations are. I’m not talking from the legal standard, like if there’s an illegal thing, you can’t do that, right. But the arbitrary rules that say you can’t, you can’t afford that, or you’re not supposed to ask for that kind of money, or you’re not supposed to sell for that type of price. Those are arbitrary. Those are all in in essentially, in your head, I’m sorry, but they’re in your head. And you have to finally realize that you are the only one that can change that. So, if you think you should be making more money, the only thing holding you back is what’s between your two ears, you have to shift your mindset into saying I am selling this at the appropriate price. It’s reasonable, it’s solving this problem, this person or persons or this company sees the value, they understand that this is what it’s worth. And they’re willing to buy at that price. And they should be willing to buy because it’s solving their problems. And it’s actually going to either show a good ROI, or return on their investment, or it’s going to create some value for them in the future, right? All of these pieces you should be able to put together pretty quickly in your head and say, Yeah, you know what, I can charge more? And no, it’s kind of a it’s a weird kind of conversation, a very uncomfortable conversation for some people. But the thing that will hold people back the most is how they were how they grew up in the past, what they were told as a child and that they had to share, and they couldn’t have too much. And honestly, when it comes right down to it, the people that are everybody’s jealous of and wish they could copy didn’t follow those rules. They did what they knew was right. They as much as they could. And I know that yes, I know some of those people have not done things right. But when you think about it, a lot of the right people that have made a lot of money, they did the right thing sold their product or service. And people said I want that too. And they got the masses to buy. So, I hope that helps. Remember, only you can change what’s in your head about money. Slow Down and Close More.

V/O  09:47

Thank you for listening to The Slow Pitch. 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. Slow Down and Close More.

Rob  10:32

Thanks as always for listening today if you liked this podcast please subscribe and leave us a review. We really appreciate it. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at The Slow Pitch. We were mixed today as always by Johnny Polakis and we were produced by High Gravity Studios. Music credits and other notes are in the show notes section on TheSlowPitch.com And we’ll be back with another episode soon.