Steps to Identifying Great Sales People

The Money Weakness

Have you gone to your next-door neighbor yet and asked how much money they made last year? With the obscure exception, of course you haven't. We live in a culture that regards frank conversations about money to be impolite, or even offensive. Unfortunately, this part of our culture finds its way into the sales process for most sales people, resulting in selling situations that go far past the point they should before all parties involved figure out the sales prospect has no money for the proposed transaction.

When evaluating sales people, another of the weaknesses we must uncover is the person's ability to discuss money at the proper point in the selling process. Their inability to have open discussions about money that include whether the prospect has set aside a specific amount for your business solutions and, if there is a budget, is the sales prospect willing to part with it will kill more deals than will the merits of your products and services.

Along with the cultural implications of discussing money, there can also be reluctance on the part of the sales person to discuss money for fear of losing a sale. Your question to that person should be: At what point would you like to find out your sales prospect has no money? As stated before, great sales people make a quick and realistic determination as to where no sale will be made. Reasons for no-sale include the sales prospect's inability to pay for a solution due to lack of funds, unwillingness to spend the money they do have, or inability to create budget where there is none.

Also, when evaluating a sales person's money issues, we want to find out their perspective on how much money they consider to be substantial. If you're looking at hiring a sales person who you expect to represent solutions costing $50,000 to $250,000, it's great to find out up-front if they feel five-hundred bucks is a lot of money. It's hard to imagine this person not having difficulty empathizing with the prospect if they themselves can justify difficulty in such an "expensive" decision.

Whether hiring a new sales person or whether managing those you already have on staff, finding out a sales person's attitude toward money and what things cost will help shorten your sell cycle and make quick work of determining those sales prospects who would find it so nice to work with your company, if only they had the money to do so.