I have had several emails, phone calls and have seen forum posts recently about talking with your customers about their budget.
In our book “Profitable Sales; A Contractor’s Guide“, budget is the last of 4 questions you need to discuss with potential customers. Too many contractors are in too big a hurry to talk about budget before they gain the trust and confidence of the customer. When you do that you put the customer on the defensive and you will rarely get them off the defensive from that point on.
Look at it this way. If you go to a car dealership and start talking with a salesperson about one of their new rigs, what is one of the first things they do? Right, they ask how much you want to invest in the vehicle and your response will almost always be, “I don’t know, depends on ___________!” That is a defensive response, the very same one you will get from your customers.
Find out what they want to do. Tons of questions here, just like it says in our book. Then find out when they want to do the job, either a start or completion date. Then we ask about their decision making process. Then what? Right. Now we talk about budget. You have to get inside their head and find out what they want, when they want it, what motivates them to buy and then talk about budget.
Do those things in that order and watch your sales ratio improve almost immediately.
Hi,
Great Newsletters, Enjoy reading them very much.
Your quite correct, people ask for the “Budget” way to early!
By asking a series of Easily answered questions you can get to the prospects perspective on the project. I recommend using the term “Investment Parameter” rather than Budget!
By respecting the prospects time and authority, you will have increased your closing ratios dramatically.
Great!.. fantastic and cool blog!.. you are right!.. By respecting the prospects time and authority, you will have increased your closing ratios dramatically… thanks for posting.