Are You Qualifying for Budget or Out Of A Sale?

Are You Qualifying for Budget or Out Of A Sale?:by admin

Many people involved in sales seem to be fixated with budget; they want to qualify for it way to early in the process.  I know it is important, but you maybe disqualifying perfectly good buyers for the wrong reason.
Your job in sales is to well, sell, which means identifying requirements or gaps in the prospect’s current situation.  But most, about 75% of potential buyers, don’t know, realize or admit they have requirements or gaps, remember – status quo is your biggest hurdle.  So if they don’t perceive a need, they don’t see a need to allocate budget.  This does not mean that they don’t in fact could benefit from your product, but they have lived with the pain long enough, or on the positive side they didn’t realize they could achieve their goals by taking advantage of your offering.  Ask this type of person about budget too early, and you will end up disqualifying a perfectly good buyer.
If you are talking to the right people in the right way, budget is very much an issue that can be (at times easily) overcome.  Consider these examples, have you ever walked into an electronics store looking to buy a flat screen, you know what you had in mind, you encountered a clerk who “qualified you”?  They asked a bunch of questions, including budget, and then showed you two or three products that fit what you described.  Contrast that with the time I walked into an electronics store, with a specific flat screen in mind, shopped it on line in advance so I had a budget in mind, but I encountered a different sales person.  She asked me why I was buying the TV, had I had a flat screen before?  What type of things would I be watching?  She then continued to ask if I what kind of DVD player I had, telling me about Blue Ray, asked if stream from the web, and of course since I told her I watch music DVD’s, what was I using to maximize the sonic experience.  When all was said and done, I had exceeded my flat screen budget by $250, or 20%; in addition I became the proud owner of an unbudgeted Blue ray player, decided to give my inadequate home theater system to the kids, how else was I going to make room for the new one.
You can say I was an impulse buyer, I would argue that I was maximizing my investment in my enhanced flat screen.  Either way there is no arguing that rather than qualifying me for budget, she qualified me for what I was trying to achieve and how to best maximize that over the life of my new Smart TV.
Corporate buyers are no different, the higher you go in the organization, the truer this is.  Executives are able to create budget, able to shift funds around, and make a buy based on a host of factors beyond budget.  I have many clients who did not have budget for training when I cold called them, but after we engaged, and I demonstrated how their investment in what I do will deliver results and returns that will exceed their investment, and justify an unbudgeted expenditure.
Executives want, no need, to make a difference, show them how you can do that and you will find a person motivated to make things happen.  Show them that you primary interest is their ability to spend, and even those with budget will self-disqualify.  It’s about engagement and investment – not budget.  Go ahead, qualify someone for a better competitor.
What’s in Your Pipeline?
Tibor Shanto