Money Tolerance - Hidden Weakness - Objective Management Group Sales Assessment & TrainingTHURSDAY, JUNE 25TH, 2009
Many years ago when my father purchased a new car, he was very self conscious about it and seldom allowed it outside of the garage. Since he had an hour drive to work and worked very early or late the car seldom got seen. Years later I discovered in speaking to my older brother that dad didn’t want anyone to see it because he was concerned that people would feel he was making too much money. In many families the subject of money was and is verboten. You shouldn’t speak about how much something cost or how much income your father or mother made. Either I was naive or unaware as I grew up, yet this was certainly prevalent in my family.
If you grew up in that type of environment you may have difficulty speaking to your clients and prospects about the subject of money. Objective Management Group recognizes this as one of the hidden weaknesses for sales people. It’s described as: Discomfort with Issues Involving Money (a frequent opposite of Empathy) Many salespeople are uncomfortable escalating a question about budget, or whether a prospect can afford the product or service being offered, to the next level. Their discomfort prevents them from helping a prospect figure out how to pay or even where the money could possibly come from. When prospects don’t have the budget, can’t envision increasing the budget or don’t know how they can find the money, the salesperson empathizes rather than digging deeper, asking questions and making suggestions to solve the monetary shortage.
How does one fix a serious money tolerance weakness? Years and years of intense psychological counseling! [Just kidding] Actually there are several ways including simply speaking out loud about it more often, being more open about money and carrying more money on you. Robert Kiyosaki books can help as well as his Cash Flow Game. We need to raise our money ceiling in order to help ourselves and the people we are working with to feel comfortable about money. When you are afraid to discuss money your prospect perceives your product/service to be less value and it also opens your product or service up to more price negotiations.
Here’s the good news. When you become comfortable talking about money you can expect to increase your effectiveness and your business about 30%.
What happens when you or your salespeople are too emotionally involved in the sales process? Have you ever finished a sales meeting and said to yourself, “darn if I’d only said this!” More than likely you’re guilty of this next hidden weakness Emotional Involvement. We look at this and how to overcome it next blog.
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