فصل 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

YOUR BUYER’S MONEY

THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF MONEY

Before you ask customers for their money, there’s something that you need to get straight about the subject. Millions of people on this planet have the false idea that there’s some sort of money shortage. But the truth of the matter is, there’s more than enough money to go around. In fact, there’s a surplus of it.

Did you know that there’s enough money circulating on this planet for every human being to have a net worth of $1 billion? One billion dollars! Are you getting your share? If you’re not, it’s because you’re thinking in terms of hard work and limits, not in terms of abundance.

Look out at the Pacific Ocean and observe the infinite energy created there. The Pacific never stops. Go out there and get as many buckets of water as you want. How many buckets can you take? If you took as many bucketfuls as you wanted, would there still be plenty of ocean? Absolutely.

Look at how much money is in the marketplace. How many people own homes, own cars, pay telephone bills every month, and buy clothes and food? There are endless amounts of money, and if we ever get close to running out, they’ll just print more—thus inflation!

Get over the idea that there’s a scarcity of money because there isn’t! There’s plenty of money to go around. If you start looking for prosperity and abundance, you’ll see that these things exist all around you.

ALERT! If others have a difficult time getting money from you, you’ll never find it easy to get money from others. Many of the best and highest-paid salespeople I’ve known are the most generous people I’ve ever met. They’re less scared about money, not because they have it, but because they understand that money is to be used, not possessed. Because they know this, they don’t have trouble getting others to part with it.

YOUR BUYER AND HIS MONEY

Your buyer becomes quite funny when it comes to decision time and giving you the money. It’s as if money somehow identifies him or he feels he’ll be different once he gives it to someone else. When it comes to actually parting with the money, buyers can act strange and start making excuses; they might generate odd stories and even alter the truth a bit. The trained professional knows how to stay in the deal, knows how to handle objections and stalls, and knows how to persist and can do so without appearing to pressure the customer.

It’s even funnier when you consider that most people aren’t giving you money; they’re merely transferring numbers from one bank account to another. In most cases they aren’t even paying for it; someone else is. But they say, “I can’t afford this.” Of course they can’t afford it—that’s why we have banks!

I’ve had people tell me that my price is too high when it wasn’t even their money on the table. When the actual money guy got involved, he immediately said “yes” and never once mentioned the price.

Some of the most difficult buyers I’ve ever been involved with later thanked me profusely for hanging in there with them, working through the price issues, and helping them make the right decision. Love your product, love your service, love your customer, and love yourself enough to learn how to “hard sell.” If you need some help handling your buyers’ price objections, then get my complete audio program on closing the deal. It will change your life.

SECOND MONEY IS EASIER THAN FIRST MONEY

I discovered the second-money phenomenon by accident one week when I was on fire, selling everybody that I called on. It was one of those freak moments when everything was easy and effortless. Every prospect I was working with was buying from me, and it seemed as though I’d walked through some magical closing portal in the universe. I’d spent hours selling this executive team who were trying to make sense of the product being affordable for their company. They finally submitted to my logic and persuasion and agreed to make the purchase.

Upon acceptance of that product, I decided to see if I could move the executives up another level, as I truly believed that it would be a better investment for the company. I knew that they’d already gone over budget, but I had to try anyway. I suggested to them that since they were already paying more than they were comfortable with, why not go all the way and move up another level? They looked at each other and turned to me in astonishment. “Actually,” one of the guys said, “we were going to ask you to do just that. We’re already paying more than we can afford—we’ll just have to produce a little more to make it work.” In that moment I’d stumbled across one of the great secrets of selling: Second money is easier to get than first money.

Startled by this discovery, I reflected on times when I’d been out shopping for a product and took forever to decide on that one particular item. But once I finally made a decision and bought it, I found myself buying another eight items on the way out of the store. This phenomenon is common among consumers. Once the flow begins, the buyer becomes more open to making more purchases. It is my belief that the consumer is actually using the second and follow-up purchases to support the rightness of his first decision.

Why does someone refer you to his or her dentist? To help the dentist? Maybe, but more likely they refer you because convincing others to go to the same dentist supports the rightness of their own decision. Everyone wants to know they’re doing the right thing, and the other-purchase phenomenon supports their actions and gives them the reassurance that what they did earlier was correct. Find one woman walking down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, carrying just one shopping bag. You probably can’t. They’ll all be laden with multiple bags. Case closed!

Another example of this is a customer who walks into a travel agency with the idea of taking a cruise. He spends four hours with the travel agent looking at all of the cruise line brochures while trying to figure out which package will best suit his needs. Should I go take a cruise to Europe, Mexico, Alaska, or the Caribbean? Should I take a five-day cruise or a two-week cruise? What is the best cruise line and who has the best ships? Once the customer decides on a destination and purchases the perfect cruise vacation, the climate is right for the travel agent to step in and offer additional products. There are accommodation upgrades from an inside deck cabin to an ocean-view suite, the island tour excursion package, travel insurance, airfare upgrades, and on and on. Because the customer has taken the plunge and bought the first item, he’s going to want to be right about his first decision, making him available to purchase additional products and services in order to support that initial decision.

I was raising money for my church and working on a prospect who had been very resistant to make any contribution. When I finally got him to agree to make a donation, I congratulated him. As I watched him write the check, I looked at him and said, “You know you’re going to do more than that before you die. Your heart’s in the right place. You’re a generous man. Why don’t you just do the rest now.” He looked at me and said, “You’re right.” He tore up the first check and wrote me another for twenty times the amount that he’d initially decided on!

If you’ve ever seen someone at a restaurant complain about the price of a steak, and then turn around and order a bottle of wine that’s twice the cost of the meal, you know what I’m talking about. Or how about the person who whines about paying ten bucks for a movie ticket and then spends another twenty on popcorn, soda, and candy? Have you ever heard a guy complain about how high his car payment is? This is the same guy who later customized the car with 22-inch wheels, a custom paint job, and a stereo system that you can hear from three blocks away! Of course, he had to charge it to his credit card at 18 percent, and the payments on the wheels, paint, and audio amount to more than the payments on the car. Yay for the second money! Learn this one and your life will change forever!

THE MORE THEY SPEND, THE BETTER THEY FEEL

Your prospect, regardless of what he says, always wants more, not less. Believe it or not, people love to spend money, and the more money they spend, the more they enjoy spending it and the more they will enjoy their decision. Show me one person who has ever come in under his or her budget when buying a home, car, furniture, equipment, clothes, a vacation—anything. That person doesn’t exist. Consumers want to take home lots of things, not just one thing. They want to brag to their friends and neighbors that they spent the most money and bought the most expensive thing. People love showing off. If they didn’t, there’d be no market for sports cars and designer clothing. Anyone can buy a leather purse that will last just as long as a designer handbag, but people know that the designer brand cost ten times more because of the label and insignia. This is America, a nation of consumers and one-uppers. Good or bad, we like to buy and we like to be seen buying. Therefore, the second purchase reinforces that the first purchase was the right decision.

Second money is easier to get than the first money. People will tell you, “Don’t get greedy; don’t complicate the close, just finish it or you might blow the deal with your attempts to get the second money.” Nonsense. That kind of thinking is for the little, mediocre salespeople of the world, not for you! Second money is for those who want to take their game and their income to the next level and want to do it in half the time.

You’ll spend 90 percent of your time eating the main course and 10 percent eating the dessert. Get the first sale wrapped up and then focus on the second sale—it’s the dessert.

This is a monster technique that works like magic. All a salesperson has to do to unlock the door of second money is get over his own fear of blowing the deal by asking for it!

Remember, money is a mental issue, not a shortage issue.