Why would you ever want to go to the time, effort and trouble of preparing a proposal for a prospect who has no money to spend or is unwilling to spend the money they need for your product. A simple thought, yes, but how many times have you heard "we like the idea but just don't have the money/budget." In fact, I'll bet there is a sales person somewhere right now getting ready to make a presentation to a prospect that hasn't been "qualified" for money/budget.
Many sales people come to the business of selling burdened with what we call "non-supportive money beliefs". A belief is an idea or thought pattern that causes action or behavior, some are supportive and some are non-supportive or self sabotaging. Beliefs or "scripts" as they are often called create positive or negative behavior.
An example of a non supportive money belief would be "money is private and not something that is polite to talk about". Now, imagine how a sales person with that belief might respond when they ask their prospect about budgets. When the prospects says "that is not something I normally discuss with a sales person" guess what happens. Because they believe "money is private and not something that is polite to talk about" they would quickly drop the subject and proceed with no knowledge of the prospects ability to pay.
Unfortunately, if you proceed in a sale with no idea about your prospects budget there are only three things that can happen and two of them are bad:
First, you're too high, and often times you will be told "sounds good", when in actuality you have already been disqualified. This situation also often generates the response "looks good , get back to me".
Second, you are too low and either leave money on the table or get disqualified for providing "low value". Again, people who doubt your value because of low price usuaully wont'tell you. Instead they say "I need more time to consider your offer".
The third circumstance is you happen to make an offer consistent with what they expected to spend. One chance in three are not good odds and not a good risk to take. Getting good at qualifying people for money will put you in a better position to eliminate the first two options and lower the chance that you will get a "money objection" at the end of the sale.
You need to have a supportive money beliefs that will create supportive sales behaviors. A supportive belief would be something like "I have a right to know whether or not my prospect can afford to buy what I sell". That belief needs to be driven by the fact that to engage in the process of selling costs you and your company money. If you are going to be asked to spend money and time (time is money) with a prospect, you have a right to know if they can afford to buy what you have.
With that thought process (belief) when you are told "my budget is not something I would normally share with a sales person" you would naturally respond differently. Knowing that to engage in selling costs money you would know that unless the prospect will reveal their budget continuing in the process would be ill advised. Now, knowing what they can spend you can create an offer that matches their expectations and be more likely to get a positive response.
So now when you think about asking "show me the money", will your beliefs support your actions. Build supportive "money" beliefs and you'll sell a lot more! Stay tuned, we'll be providing more suggestions on how to discuss your clients financial resources!
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