How to discuss budget on a sales call

To all my friends out there selling today, here is your friendly sales tip of the week:

Don't be afraid to talk about budget!

We are a generation that feels so icky talking about money. We think somebody's going to pull one over on us—or that it's inappropriate.

I've seen so many founders and sellers push the budget conversation off until way down the sales pipeline, only to discover they thought we were talking three figures, but we were talking five figures.

So don't do that to yourself. Talking clearly about how much you cost and how to buy you is one of the nicest things you can do for your prospects. Nobody is wasting time. We both know exactly what we're getting into.

You would never enter a shop and see all the things on the shelves and ask how much it costs. And the person would say, "I don't know."

That's just not how that works.

So here's a couple of tips of ways that you can get much better at talking about budget.

Don't assume you know somebody's budget.

Ask, ask very clearly.

"How much money have you put aside for something like this?"

"Is this already part of your yearly budget or are you trying to get budget for next year?"

"How much have you been used to paying for this?"

All of these questions are clear. They're fair questions. And it's going to help us understand

whether there's actually a real deal here.

Build pricing into the earliest parts of your sales conversation.

Again, we want these people to know how much we cost so that nobody's time gets wasted. And so we need to be saying things like, "What is the budget that you've already set aside for this?"

Or letting them know our monthly rate is a minimum of $5,000 and it can go up from there.

Then you can ask really good follow up questions:

"Is that way out of the realm of what you were thinking?"

"Is that number totally crazy or does that align with how much budget you've put into this?"

Say your number, say it loud, say it proud and stick to it.

So many people hem and haw over how much they cost—or they try and justify it. That makes the buyer automatically assume that you don't know what you're doing, or you actually don't think that this is a fair price.

The best sellers say their number, they know they're worth it.

And, and honestly, if you can't afford it, go to dollar tree...