Discussing Money

A tuff subject for many salespeople to talk about is money. For some reason, salespeople build up all sorts of "head trash" around the concept of money. I remember the story of a CFO who was laid off from a corporate job. After about 18 months of unemployment, he realized that he was overqualified for most of the jobs that he was interviewing for. He decided that at the next interview, he would offer to work on projects as an independent consultant.

His next interview went like all the others. The CEO recognized his expertise, but didn't have room on the payroll for him. The CFO asked "do you have a project I could work on independently?" The CEO said yes and described the job. The CFO thought about it and reasoned that he could get the project done in one week. When the subject of cost came up, he started doing the math in his head. He had made about $150,000 per year in his previous job, which was roughly $3,000 per week. He decided to offer $2,500 to be sure that he would not price himself out of the business. The CEO, who had been negotiating in business his whole life, said he would pay $1,900. The CFO agreed to the sum and, with that deal, created his "consultant" business.

This story gives several examples of money issues. First, the CFO felt he needed to discount his price, but the only person who knew it was a discount was the CFO. Upon hearing the initial offer, the CEO did what he always does, he offered a lower price. Since the CFO had no other prospects, he was all too eager for the business and jumped at the first counter offer.

The real questions to ask is why did the CFO feel the need to discount in the first place? Did he feel that he didn't offer enough value? Imagine if your salespeople have the same "head trash" when they go on sales calls. How much is it costing your business each year?

One of the first things we do at Continental Sales Training before working with a company is to run an evaluation on the entire sales force. One of the many thing we look for is Money Weakness. Money Weakness is something that can be discovered, measured and worked on. And it is one of the best ways to improve sales in a company.