By: Jason Dizon
“I don’t have the budget for all this.”
How many times have we all heard this sentiment that our customers usually have. For us salespeople, we have probably heard this a lot during our entire career in sales. We believe enough in our product/service that we price them in such a way that justifies this belief. More often than not, we price them higher than what our customers think they’re worth. Because of this, we often hear our customers say that they can’t afford our product/service.
What a salesperson does afterwards defines his attitude and aptitude towards sales. Do you give in and offer your customer a discount? Do you stand firm and defend how your high pricing justifies how good of a product/service you might have? Do you try and find a compromise that would work for both parties? Whatever approach one might have, we can all admit that it’s not that easy dealing with this type of objection.
With this in mind, we can become better at dealing with our customers’ budget constraints by following these tips from The Advanced Selling Podcast.
1. Check your head.
The first thing you need to do when a customer says that he/she cannot afford your product/service is to think hard on the situation at hand. You shouldn’t let yourself get easily sucked into your customer’s words that you begin to doubt your product/service.
I remember how I used to have a client who thought our service was a bit too expensive for them. At that point in time, I was still fairly new to sales and I started having doubts about whether or not our service was worth what we were charging. After talking with our CEO and a bunch of our colleagues, I became more certain about our service and I didn’t have doubts anymore when it came to pricing. Because of this, I was able to get my client to believe in our service.
Always remember that your customer will not believe in your company when you yourself start having doubts about it.
2. Try to understand the logic behind set budgets.
There’s a saying that goes, “If you want to understand someone, try walking in his/her shoes.” This is especially true for us salesmen. We try to pitch to our customers and make them trust in our companies. However, the only way for us to get our customers to trust us is if we try to understand where they’re coming from.
Sometimes, budgets aren’t that well thought of. Usually, a company budget is first set with some careful consideration until it comes to a point where people simply add constant percentages annually. Budgets in these cases simply become numbers.
As a salesperson, we must not get ourselves down and think that it’s all over once a customer says that they can’t afford our product/service. I remember how one of our clients had a service provider who specialized in a similar set of offerings as ours. That client had a set budget at first. However, we were able to convince him that our service can bring different results and got him to do business with us.
Budgets may be well thought out but they aren’t necessarily set in stone.
3. Make sure that you are calling on people who are not constrained by budget.
A single company may have different budgets for different departments and different positions internally. This is because a company would tend to focus on some key areas wherein they can grow their business. The key here is to find those people who are willing to spend more.
A rule of thumb here is that it would be better to talk to someone of higher position within a company. Whether it’s a middle or top manager, or even the CEO, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s someone who has some decision-making power and the flexibility to spend a bit more. This is why our company does business with CEO’s and top managers. These people atop the corporate structure would be more than willing to spend as compared to their other colleagues especially if what you’re offering to them is something that actually works.
4. Work through the budget together.
When your client says that he/she can’t afford what you’re offering to them, you should go through the budget together to see if both of you are looking at it in the same way. While it is true that you have a certain price for your product/service and your client has a budget, you shouldn’t simply stick to your way and say that it’s either this or no deal.
You should make your client think of how it would be like doing business with you versus the cost of doing business without you. Once you do this, you should be able to engineer a deal in a way that would work for both parties.
This happened to me in the past. We had a certain pricing scheme and my client said that they thought our solution was a bit expensive. After talking through their budget and what we could do to help improve their company, we came up with a compromise that ended in a win-win situation for the both of us.
In the end, pricing and budgets are all just numbers. As salesmen, we need to talk with our customers and understand where they’re coming from so that we can find a way in which both parties will benefit from one another.
How many times have we all heard this sentiment that our customers usually have. For us salespeople, we have probably heard this a lot during our entire career in sales. We believe enough in our product/service that we price them in such a way that justifies this belief. More often than not, we price them higher than what our customers think they’re worth. Because of this, we often hear our customers say that they can’t afford our product/service.
What a salesperson does afterwards defines his attitude and aptitude towards sales. Do you give in and offer your customer a discount? Do you stand firm and defend how your high pricing justifies how good of a product/service you might have? Do you try and find a compromise that would work for both parties? Whatever approach one might have, we can all admit that it’s not that easy dealing with this type of objection.
With this in mind, we can become better at dealing with our customers’ budget constraints by following these tips from The Advanced Selling Podcast.
1. Check your head.
The first thing you need to do when a customer says that he/she cannot afford your product/service is to think hard on the situation at hand. You shouldn’t let yourself get easily sucked into your customer’s words that you begin to doubt your product/service.
I remember how I used to have a client who thought our service was a bit too expensive for them. At that point in time, I was still fairly new to sales and I started having doubts about whether or not our service was worth what we were charging. After talking with our CEO and a bunch of our colleagues, I became more certain about our service and I didn’t have doubts anymore when it came to pricing. Because of this, I was able to get my client to believe in our service.
Always remember that your customer will not believe in your company when you yourself start having doubts about it.
2. Try to understand the logic behind set budgets.
There’s a saying that goes, “If you want to understand someone, try walking in his/her shoes.” This is especially true for us salesmen. We try to pitch to our customers and make them trust in our companies. However, the only way for us to get our customers to trust us is if we try to understand where they’re coming from.
Sometimes, budgets aren’t that well thought of. Usually, a company budget is first set with some careful consideration until it comes to a point where people simply add constant percentages annually. Budgets in these cases simply become numbers.
As a salesperson, we must not get ourselves down and think that it’s all over once a customer says that they can’t afford our product/service. I remember how one of our clients had a service provider who specialized in a similar set of offerings as ours. That client had a set budget at first. However, we were able to convince him that our service can bring different results and got him to do business with us.
Budgets may be well thought out but they aren’t necessarily set in stone.
3. Make sure that you are calling on people who are not constrained by budget.
A single company may have different budgets for different departments and different positions internally. This is because a company would tend to focus on some key areas wherein they can grow their business. The key here is to find those people who are willing to spend more.
A rule of thumb here is that it would be better to talk to someone of higher position within a company. Whether it’s a middle or top manager, or even the CEO, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s someone who has some decision-making power and the flexibility to spend a bit more. This is why our company does business with CEO’s and top managers. These people atop the corporate structure would be more than willing to spend as compared to their other colleagues especially if what you’re offering to them is something that actually works.
4. Work through the budget together.
When your client says that he/she can’t afford what you’re offering to them, you should go through the budget together to see if both of you are looking at it in the same way. While it is true that you have a certain price for your product/service and your client has a budget, you shouldn’t simply stick to your way and say that it’s either this or no deal.
You should make your client think of how it would be like doing business with you versus the cost of doing business without you. Once you do this, you should be able to engineer a deal in a way that would work for both parties.
This happened to me in the past. We had a certain pricing scheme and my client said that they thought our solution was a bit expensive. After talking through their budget and what we could do to help improve their company, we came up with a compromise that ended in a win-win situation for the both of us.
In the end, pricing and budgets are all just numbers. As salesmen, we need to talk with our customers and understand where they’re coming from so that we can find a way in which both parties will benefit from one another.
Jason is currently an Account Executive at Leadfunnel.ph. While he is new to blogging, he is well-versed in news writing and other forms of creative writing.
Curious? Want to know more? You can reach Jason at 0917-569-3371.
The difficulty of sales is what makes it challenging yet exciting all at the same time!
Curious? Want to know more? You can reach Jason at 0917-569-3371.
The difficulty of sales is what makes it challenging yet exciting all at the same time!
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