How your relationship with money can impact your sales results

Ever catch yourself thinking, I wouldn’t pay this, so they won’t either? That sneaky voice is money projection, and it can cost you the deal long before the buyer raises a single objection. We dig into how personal money beliefs shape tone, sequencing, and confidence in the sales conversation—and what to do when those beliefs start steering you toward discounts, delays, and watered-down value.

We start by mapping how early money stories set your default selling posture: scarcity versus possibility, apology versus conviction. Then we get practical. You’ll learn to spot the telltale signs of projection—underpresenting value, overexplaining price, avoiding the close—and replace them with clear steps that keep the focus on outcomes. We share a simple shop-floor story that exposes how fast assumptions can shrink a buyer’s options, and why separating your wallet from your client’s is the cornerstone of ethical, effective selling.

From there, we offer a toolkit for high-integrity conversations: neutral, open questions that surface a buyer’s true view of value; a centring routine to reduce stress before meetings; and a shift from price apology to value conviction that anchors decisions in agreed results. If you want to sell with confidence, coach buyers to clarity, and stop negotiating against yourself, this guide gives you the language and mindset to do it.

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Welcome to the podcast!

Chapters

• 0:22 Welcome And Quick Housekeeping
• 0:39 Defining Money Projection
• 2:03 Childhood Money Stories
• 4:58 Sales Symptoms Of Projection
• 6:30 A Lesson From The Phone Shop
• 7:37 How To Stop Projecting
• 10:26 Centering And Value Conviction
• 12:28 Review And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

Well, hello and welcome to another episode of uh Selling for Success. I'm Graham Elliott, and if you find these podcasts useful, please remember to like and subscribe. That uh is really helpful. And um also take a look at my online sales course. So that's the ad done. So what's this one about? Well, have you ever been with a client and thought to yourself, I don't think they can afford this, or this is a lot of money, I shouldn't really push them, or something along the lines of I'd never pay this much, so how can I ask them to? If any of those sound familiar to you, then hopefully you're gonna get something useful from this particular episode. Because what I'll be talking about is a thing called money projection, and this is where we basically take our story about money, so our relationship with money, and we project it onto the client. So there's a few things in this to um to go into, and this could really be a series of podcasts in its own right, but just to keep things very brief and usable, we all have a relationship with money, we all have beliefs about money. It might be that money comes easily, probably for a lot of us, it's that money doesn't come that easily. Maybe we have to work really hard to get any to get money, maybe there's something wrong with money, maybe only um people who cheat other people end up with money. So there's all sorts of stories about this, and it's not so much about whether any of these are right or wrong, this is simply about first of all understanding what our relationship with money is, and then secondly, what we tend to do, and this is something we do subconsciously, so this isn't picking on anyone, but we'll tend to project those beliefs onto other people, we'll assume that they have the same beliefs. And the truth is that we have different beliefs about money, and the really important thing here is to recognize that our beliefs around money are not necessarily the same as our clients. There's probably a good chance they're different, and what we tend to do as people is to assume that our story around money, our beliefs around money, are their stories, their beliefs. So I'm gonna dive into this a little bit, and the reason I want to do this is that often if you've been asked or had those kind of thoughts, what that will do is make it really difficult to ask for the order. This is where we tend to hold back, where we don't want to ask for the order. And I've spoken about this before. Obviously, there's aspects of rejection and all this kind of stuff. But one of the underlying causes of not wanting to ask for the order can be our relationship with money. And if this resonates with you, then I would suggest this is possibly what's going on. So why do we do it? Well, our relationship with money starts when we're young. And if you go back to when you were growing up, what were the stories around money that you grew up with? Was it that you had to be grateful for everything you got? Did you get that people who had money there was something wrong with them? Um, or maybe money came easily, maybe money wasn't an issue for you at all. So, whatever the story is, the chances are that that's the story you've taken on. And as we grow grow up, this these stories sort of run in the background, so they become our subconscious um story about money, and that's how we tend to approach money. So if you're somebody who is often living paycheck to paycheck, or you only ever buy things in sales, there's probably in you um some stories around money, about scarcity of money, or there's not enough money. So the purpose of this is not to solve those problems, as I say, they're another um issue, but it is to understand that they're there, and another way that money can um express itself is as an expression of our own self-worth. So sometimes for some people, if you don't really believe deep down that you deserve things, you'll self-sabotage. It's something we do. I've spoken about this before, it's in the course, but we self-sabotage. So subconsciously we trip ourselves up, we don't ask for the order, or we'll do something to ruin the deal. Or we'll just simply imagine that the client is somehow judging us when it's actually us who are doing the judging. So, what's what are the symptoms when you're in a sales scenario? Well, the kind of things that is likely to go on that are likely to go on are that you'll underpresent the value. And remember, I've spoken about this. Uh, the price is not so much of an issue as the value, and that will be tailored to what the client is trying to achieve. So it's about solving the client's problem. So if you have an unhelpful story about money, then you'll tend to under underpresent the value. Your tone may well be apologizing for the price, you might start overexplaining and just talking and talking, and that again signals insecurity. You might be putting off that moment where the client has to say yes or no to you. And maybe you avoid the necessary coaching that helps the client to make an informed decision that might be another symptom of what's going on, or you unintentionally lead the prospect towards thoughts of scarcity rather than possibilities. So, um, again, scarcity is obviously about there's not enough. Um, what we're selling is possibility often. We're leading the client to where the problems are solved, they're now experiencing this transformation where things are working and perhaps working much better than they were before. So that might result in them feeling better about themselves, they might be making more money, all these kinds of things. Scarcity is the opposite of that. So the bottom line here is that when you assume that a client can't afford something, you subtly invite them to assume the same thing. So projection creates hesitation, it creates doubt, and obviously doubt kills deals. So, and I have experienced this in just a simple um experience I had. I was at one stage selling mobile phones in a small um shop in Cairns, and this lady came in, and I assumed she didn't have much money from just the way she was dressed and all the rest of it. So obviously, we're, you know, I'm putting my judgments on her with no um actual evidence to support any of them. And I was constantly trying to sell her these lower cost phones, and in the end, she bought something that was quite a lot more, and it just dawned on me that I'd made that I'd been prejudiced in how I'd assessed her and how I'd discussed her requirements with her. So it's really important that we allow the client to run with their story about money, which hopefully um in this situation or this sort of scenario is better than ours. So, how do you stop it? So, the first thing to do is to just get clear about your own money story. Now, I'm not going to dive into this in any depth, but just ask yours, ask yourself what feels uncomfortable about your prices if you're concerned about your prices, if they if it feels like you're asking too much. Or would you buy your own offer? So hopefully you understand the value that you're offering, and um if if you could deliver that value to yourself, would you be prepared to pay that price? And if the answer to either of those questions is no, then why not? What's going on there? The important thing is really the second um question or second interlocut or second action, and that's simply to separate the client's wallet from your wallet, because their financial reality is not yours. Your job is to present the truth of what you're offering, it's to understand their requirement, understand what their pain points are, and then present a solution that solves that problem for them. That's it. It's not to take any responsibility for their financial situation, it's their job to make the decision. So instead of saying, um, instead of assuming rather, start using neutral questions or open questions like how does this investment feel to you? And that allows them to tell you how they're receiving the value of what it is you're offering. Does what you're offering present value to them? Is that what they are receiving from you? So keep those questions neutral, invite them to fill in the gaps. So buy an open question. Um it's not a yes-no answer. So let them do the explanation, let them talk about it, and really listen to what they're saying, and because that's the reality of this deal. It's not your reality and your story about money. Um, it may be that you get a bit stressed about all this, that obviously happens as well. So, one of the things you can do before you go into a call is just maybe spend a minute or so just taking a deep breath, relaxing, just de-stressing yourself as much as you can, and maybe get to an appointment a bit early. If you're in a car, that's ideal because you can just sit down in the car, obviously, in the car park, and just have a few minutes of getting yourself together before you go in, so that you're not running from stress or needing to make the sale or all these other things. And I've spoken about all of that in previous podcasts as well. And just get yourself centered and grounded so that you're in a more relaxed position before you even start the uh the meeting. So the key thing here is to practice, we'll call it value conviction and not price apology. So you're not asking for their approval of the price, you're offering them a path to the outcome they want. And the important thing here is the value that they see of your offer. And by asking all those upfront questions that I've spoken about in other podcasts that I speak about on the course, you get very clear, or it should become very clear what the value is of your solution to them. And hopefully you've got a very good match. And in a lot of cases, the price will not be an issue. Um, so that's an important thing to hang on to. And where price isn't an issue, then the money stories are no longer relevant. So, just to review, really, uh, we all have stories about money. Some of them are quite healthy. If you're making a lot of money and you're quite relaxed about money, then that's great. If you're somebody who is concerned about whether or not the client can afford what you're offering, and it's not coming from any knowledge of their financial situation, it's just uh you just feel the price is high with no other um input than your own opinion, then step back from that. Just recognize the chances are that this is your money story coming to the fore, this is your relationship, this is your belief about money that you're now projecting onto your client. And also look at the other symptoms, if you like, that I spoke about hesitating about closing, having a lot of doubt, maybe even subconsciously leading the client away from the deal. So be very clear about that. And if if you do identify with those issues, then just remember the suggestions I've made. Get yourself centered before you go in, ask those neutral questions, and focus on value, focus on the problem that you're solving for them. They will decide whether or not your price is something they can afford in order to have the outcome they're looking for. Okay, so that is it on this podcast. I'll speak to you again in the next one. I hope you have found that useful. If you have, please like and subscribe. And I'll speak to you in the next podcast. Bye for now.