Mishandling of personal finances is a common cause of Sales Associate failure. These are people that were good at listing, selling, marketing, and technology, but were horrible at handling their personal finances. Oftentimes we hear Sales Associates say that they cannot budget their income and expenses because their income is variable. Actually it is the other way around – it is because their income is variable that they have an absolute need to budget their income and expenses. So the first thing to do when it comes to personal finances is to develop a budget. The only people that can afford not to have a budget are the few people that are so strict with their own personal finances that they always come up spending less than they budgeted for. As mentioned, there are very few people that fall into this category. For the rest of us, budgeting is a mandatory activity.