Budget? No Thanks.

Nobody likes to talk about money or go into talking about their budget. For some people, it could be really important to them, but it is just hard and uncomfortable to talk about. Budget discussion only makes sense in the context of it being a true assessment of the real pain of the prospect and the prospect’s perception that your solution can solve that pain and is worth the cost. The perceived pain of cost is less than the perceive pain and not spending investing in your solution.

However, having the budget discussion is vital no matter how much you don’t want to talk about it as a salesperson, or even as a customer. It terms of being a salesperson, honesty and delicacy are a must. When having a conversation with a potential customer, you need to evaluate how easily does your prospect talk about money. Are they uncomfortable, do they suddenly act in a controlling way, does it get weird? If it does, figure out why you think that is.

Having opening budget questions can help your customer and yourself be more relaxed in this setting and help you be more prepared. You have to earn the right to talk about it, having demonstrated your competence and engagement through strategic questioning. You can ask open-ended questions like “mind if we talk about budget for a minute?”, “Quick question: internally, have you talked about the kind of money you think it might take to solve this problem?”, “Have you set any kind of budget parameters for this project?”, or “Have you been given some limits for this project”?

Using budget techniques can help you get to a number. First and foremost, get a real number. While working in a bakery, I have to take customer’s orders on their custom cake and they expect to know the price. Having to call customer back to tell them that you messed up the pricing is not fun, more specifically if it is even more expensive than planned. That is why it is important to get the real number and the right number. You can also use the budget technique of giving a range. Asking questions like “If it were between 3k and 5k, would that be more doable?” can help you customer get an idea of what the ball park spending would be and help them and yourself if doing business together would be a good fit.

No talking about budget is never easy, but it is so important to do and needs to happen. To make a sale, someone has to spend money, so talking about budget is going to come up in conversation no matter what. Taking the right approach is most important to closing the deal and keeping you and the customer comfortable.