Selling is the skill you were never trained for

The skill nobody trained you for

Alex Hayes is the president of Boost Pricing, a company that trains sales teams to win deals at higher prices and hold that price. Her diagnosis of why independent professionals undercharge starts with something basic. Nobody taught you to sell.

Most people who become good at sales get there by luck, she says. There isn't much early training for it. Inside a larger organisation, you have a sales manager, a team and a marketing department around you. When you go independent, all of that disappears. You notice what was missing the first time you have to ask for money on your own.

You start with the website, then the features. You skip why they need it, what matters, and what the outcome is.

You can learn how to find leads, run discovery calls and explain what you do. Holding your price brings fear into the conversation.

"When it comes to price and holding on price, not just setting it, but holding on it, so much of that is mindset. And that's, it's fear."

You can learn a sales process. You still have to name the fear.

The five lines

Years ago, I was lucky enough to have a mentor, the late Denis Hitchens, a former Hewlett Packard marketing manager for Australia.

He drew five lines on a page:

1. revenue
2. the cost of delivering the work 
3. the cost of finding clients 
4. the cost of running the business, and
5. profit

For an independent professional selling services, profit should sit between fifteen and twenty-five per cent.

That maths can stay invisible when the relationship feels warm. The conversation goes well. The client is happy. You don't see the margin that has disappeared. You can work out your own floor with the five-line calculator.

Scope creep hits another line. Every extra job you absorb for free adds to the cost of delivery because you're giving away time you can't charge for.

Value: the fee that never catches up

Getting faster at the work should raise the fee. It usually does the opposite.

The fee gets tied to how long the work used to take. Then you get faster and produce better work, while the fee stays where it was.

"You should be charging based on what you're giving the client, not the process to get there."

Pricing by the hour  keeps that gap open. Every improvement that reduces the hours can reduce the bill as well. Pricing the outcome means the fee can reflect what the client receives.

Money, authority, need

Denis Hitchens, my late mentor, had a three-part test for a deal: money, authority, need.

Check the budget, check that this person can approve the work, then dig for the need.

Alex says price can sit much further down the buyer's priorities than you assume. Price may be the fifth most important thing on their list.

She tells the story of a client selling nuts and bolts who thought they were selling a commodity. The screw didn't matter to the buyer. A previous supplier had delivered late, so the buyer wanted confidence that it wouldn't happen again.

If you don't ask, you sell the screw.

Preparation: the questions you write down

Alex's first step for anyone who hates selling is preparation. Write it down.

Start with the questions you can answer confidently. There might be five core questions you can use to open the conversation because you know where they lead and what to listen for.

Then write down the top three objections you actually hear. They may be about the timeline, the price or the wait. Work out beforehand how you'll respond to each one.

"The lack of training in sales is we don't prepare."

Without that preparation, the first real client conversation becomes the practice run. When the pressure comes, the price is often the easiest thing to give away.

Whoever you're with is listening for something

This connects with my E8 podcast conversation with the late Mark Goulston. His line is that whoever you're with is listening for something. Your job is to find out what it is.

He tells the story of an investor smiling through a pitch after deciding within three minutes to say no. The investor keeps listening because he doesn't want to be rude. The person pitching takes the smile as encouragement and keeps going.

The better move is to pause and ask.

Alex applies the same thinking when someone asks you to match another quote. Your first reaction may be to lower the price. She suggests asking:

"Tell me what is the most important thing in this quote. Tell me why that is, why you'd rather work with me."

When someone can't see how the price matches the value, ask what matters before you touch the quote.

Scope creep: approval wearing a different mask

Alex sees scope creep as a need for approval. You've won the work, so the fear of losing it has eased. Now you're worried that naming the extra cost might damage the relationship.

So the free work keeps coming.

Her first guardrail is a pay-myself number on a post-it where you can see it. That number shows what the extra work is costing you.

Her second is a prepared response:

The client can ask. You can revise the quote.

Agreements

Denis sent a simple written document after every sale. It recorded what had been agreed and set out what any additional work would cost.

That gives you something to point back to when the request changes.

Alex puts it like this:

"Operate like you're protecting someone else, even if it's just you and on your own."

Write down the scope, or at least the tangible output. When the client asks for something outside it, you can refer to the agreement, name the price and send the revision in writing.

A written agreement won't stop the client asking. It makes the answer easier because the scope and the basis for charging are already on the page.

The first step

You don't need to rebuild your whole sales process this week.

Write down five questions you can use to open a client conversation. Add the three objections you hear most often and prepare your response to each one. Put your pay-myself number somewhere you can see it.

Then, when someone pushes on the price or asks for a little more, you have a question ready and a revised quote to send.

The wider picture, including the other practice pieces that sit around this one, is in the Insight Hub.

Frequently asked questions

References

Wisepreneurs Project podcast, Episode 99, on why independents undercharge from fear and how to hold a price, out Friday 11 September

Alex Hayes Pricing Confidence: Why Independent Professionals Undercharge. 

Wisepreneurs Project podcast, Episode 8, on finding out what the person in front of you is listening for.

Mark Goulston Surgical Empathy: How Listening Builds Trust for Independent Professionals. 

Every Tuesday I send The Wisepreneur, a short letter for experienced professionals building independent practice: one usable idea a week. Sign up at wisepreneurs.com.au/newsletter