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While doing research on the net about the average cost of a sales call, I could find no consensus. Some industries are probably in the $600 to $700 range but those would be the very high tech, big dollar industries. Perhaps $350 to $450 is more of a median.

Regardless, it is not cheap and some business requires multiple calls. Considering this, why do so many salespeople wait until the end of the sales process to talk about price? I learned this the hard way. Helping a manufacturing plant in their considerations to move from mechanical devices to electronic, I spent several face to face calls discussing the pros and cons and crawling around equipment to make sure I had considered all aspects of the change over.

This plant had 70 pieces of equipment to retro-fit; it would be a nice order. During one of the last calls to put the finishing touches on the project, the chief engineer asked what all this would cost him. Being the clever salesman that I thought I was I said that it wouldn't cost him anything as he would re-coup his expenses very quickly in improved manufacturing and less down time. The outlay would be about $4,000 per machine.

He was stunned and said that their budget was only $150,000! Had I asked about the budget up front, the whole process could have been handled differently. Different equipment might have been able to be used. How much of my time, the customer's time, and design engineer's time had I wasted? All for want of asking the right question at the right time.

Be bold! Ask early, very early in the process if the purchase is definite, probable, just being considered, money alloted, how much, this quarter, next quarter etc. Remember that ROI on time is an imperative.