I would like to turn your attention to giving an incredible gift to someone who is very special to you, someone who you couldn’t have made it this far without – yourself.

And the gift I am talking about is protecting your commission – whether it’s the price of your product or the fee you charge for your service. Why do so many people struggle with this? It’s because their prospects are constantly challenging them on this issue and because they are afraid that if they don’t drop their price, the prospect will go elsewhere.

It is an understandable concern, but a very wounded way to go through the process of doing business. And the bottom line is if you habitually drop your price or cave into prospect pressure, you are treating both yourself and your product/service like a generic commodity – no more.

Below is an excerpt from my soon-to-be released book The Samurai of Sales:

“One vital aspect of creating success that I see so many entrepreneurs struggle with is getting paid what they are worth – charging top dollar for their product or service and defending their fee. Not only does this struggle steal money from the businessman/woman, but it also leaves one feeling disempowered. It conjures up feelings of inadequacy – not feeling worthy or deserving – feeling like you sold yourself short (which you did), feeling like a fraud or that the prospect can see right through the story you are attempting to tell.”

To master this aspect of your sales game, there are three main areas you must address and master:

  1. How you live your own life in regards to spending money
  2. Your professional identity
  3. Your selling skills

First, let’s discuss how you live your own life in regards to money

Ponder these questions:

  • When making a buying decision, how do you approach the issue of price when it comes to your own money?
  • Do you tend to focus on price first or price only – always looking to get the biggest discount with consideration for everything else being secondary?
  • How heavily do you weigh the factor of price, including the sales person’s commission? Are you a habitual tight wad? Do you feel good about your salesperson making a strong commission off your purchase?

It is critical that you to take a rigorous personal inventory of yourself.  In doing so, be sure that you are not answering from a perspective of who you believe yourself to be or who you want to be. Take a look at how you actually think and act with respect to price and paying a commission when you are the buyer.

If you determine that you are resentful about paying commissions and/or that you always put price above everything else when making a buying decision, then you will experience discomfort as a sales person and justifying your commission. Attempting to recommend, let alone persuade someone else to do something or make a decision that you clearly would not do yourself can be extremely difficult. Think about the contradiction there. You’re living a lie! You don’t have any mental legs to stand on and your subconscious knows it.

On the other hand, if you appreciate the efforts of your sales person to help you find the right product or service for you, and are happy that the he or she will be rewarded with a strong commission, then you have the mindset that will help you justify your own commissions to your customers.

We’ll continue this discussion about protecting your commissions in the next post, when we’ll talk about your professional identity and your selling skills.