Talking about price or budget in a sales conversation can be a difficult topic for both the prospect and the salesperson, but it is a vital part of the conversation and needs to be discussed. It can take time to fully learn about how to address this in a conversation, but here are a few basics.
The budget conversation should come toward the end of the sales conversation, or at least after building rapport and finding the pain the prospect is experiencing. If the prospect asks about the price before you think it is time to talk about it, say that you will come back to that, and ask if it is okay to ask a few more questions first. They should be totally fine with this. Once you have a firm grasp on the problem, you can start talking about your product and the budget. This should still be done in a questioning mode where you are learning if they think the product will work for them, and what they think the budget is.
One thing to keep in mind during the budget conversation is that prospects usually lie about price. They might say that they are only willing to spend a certain amount of money, when in reality their budget is higher. To overcome this, you can dig deeper into the price and find out more, and hopefully learn a more realistic number of what they are willing to pay.
If the budget talk comes after they have some knowledge about your product, a good way to start on this is to see if they have researched or know what this actually will cost, or see if they are looking in to any other companies about this. If it is after they have some knowledge of the product, you can ask something like, “what do you think something like this would cost?” This shows if they have done research or have knowledge in the industry, and also gives an estimate on what they are expecting.
You can also use a tactic called bracketing to get a more general idea of the price they are thinking. This is where you give the prospect a few different price ranges and see what they are thinking. For example, you could give them three ranges – $100-$500, $500-$1000, and $1000-$1500. Once you narrow it down to a range, you can work on the pricing and features within that to get the exact product they want for a price they are willing to pay. They may decide that they are wiling to go a little outside of their range, but at least you have an idea to start with the brackets.
There are many other tactics for deciding on price as well. With experience and more sales conversations, you will learn how to better talk with customers about this sensitive topic, and how people in the industry discuss budget, since it can be different with every product being sold.
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