Protecting Your Commission

Hello There!

I trust today finds you productive and getting excellent results.

With the holiday season in full swing and everyone focused on giving gifts to the people they care about, 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 I have copied some excerpts from my soon to be released “Protecting Your Commission” E-Lettter. Enjoy:

“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 3 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

1) How you live your own life in regards to money

Question: 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? In other words, how do you live your own life regarding this?

When it comes time to spend your own money or make buying decisions for yourself, how to you process that decision? How heavily do you weigh the factor of price, or fee? Are you a habitual tight wad? I encourage you to take a rigorous personal inventory of yourself. This is absolutely critical.

Is price the very first thing you tend to look at and worry about before everything else? In answering this, 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 in those situations.

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.

2) Your identity as an entrepreneur

Do you see yourself (“your - self”, think about that) as a full service, top-shelf individual? Are you the type of person who warrants, who deserves the full boat, the high-end fee? Are you someone who is comfortable dealing with selling the high-end product and getting paid for it? When it comes to business, who are you?

This is the key. We’re going beyond words to your level of belief – your self-concept. As the saying goes, “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” Picture someone who has their head held low, looking down, shoulders slumped down, avoiding eye contact with you while saying in a bland monotone voice at a volume you can barely hear: “I am so excited right now.” You know they don’t really mean it! They’re not congruent in what they are saying.

At the end of the day, this requires a very clear decision. It requires you to make the decision that you and your product/service are worth EVERY PENNY you are asking for and more. That your prospect is getting off cheap. That you are worthy and that great things are headed your way, because you deserve them. With that mindset in place, what could possibly stop you?

3) Your selling skills on this topic:

… remember, the best time to handle an objection is before it comes up. If you think price/fee may come up as an objection, then your job is to pre-empt it in advance. You want to point out and even show off in advance about the fact that you are more expensive then your competition as one of the things that sets you apart. Have it be part of your identity. To use an old but effective example:

“We are the Rolls Royce of the __________ industry.”

Speak as if you are in another league than your competition from the very beginning. Create a very strong Pre-Frame (covered in “Qualifying Your Prospects…”) for your prospects up front.

One specific rebuttal you can give:

1) “You are correct, our price/fee is higher than abc competition, yet every year we sell millions (billions) of dollars worth of your product/service to some of the smartest consumers (corporations) in the market. Would you like to know why?”

or:

“Yes, you are correct, our price/fee is higher than abc competition, yet every year we outsell abc by 25% (if that is true), would you like to know why?”

There’s a lot more where that came from. In addition to the E-Letter on protecting your commission, I am about to release a much more comprehensive E-Book titled “CRITICAL SELLING SKILLS FOR THE CONTEMPORARY SALES PROFESSIONAL…” which will contain “Protecting Your Commission” as a chapter as well. This book is going to cover the most important skills and tools you must know in today’s marketplace if you want to be at the top of your game as a sales professional. If you’d like to hear some of the details on pre-order discounts I am offering right now, please mail me back.

Regardless remember, you are entitled to every penny you are charging and more! You are just that good. If you don’t really get that on a gut level, do the work on yourself to engrain it. That is absolutely key. Have a great day and I will be in touch.

Yours In Success,

Mitch Harris
President
Communication Mastery