Sales Qualification 5 Questions About Money

Sales qualification shouldn’t only be about checking there’s a budget but questions about money are a vital element of the process – understanding the opportunity and deciding how to win it.

Asking questions about money can be difficult for sales guys, especially newbies so its important we find ways to ask those questions as part of the scoping discussions. Here’s our suggestions of five questions about money and how to ask them.

“How are you going to pay me?” can be a tough question to ask, but it’s fundamental to our role.  We aren’t earning any money till the customer pays.

So before we can decide whether to “go after” a piece of business, it’s vital we understand how we’re going to get paid.  If the prospect won’t give us a straight answer to this question I suggest we go golfing instead.

Likewise “how much are you prepared to pay?” is equally tough to ask, and equally vital to our decision and strategy.  The last thing we want to get involved in is a race to the bottom auction.  If we aren’t going to be able to meet the client’s requirement at a price that makes us a profit we don’t want the business.  Either we need to change the scope, or walk away.

So these are entirely legitimate questions we need answers to:

1. Is there a budget set aside for this project?
2. How much is it?
3. Who controls it?
4. What releases the funds?
5. How do we get to that “what”?

Once we have the answers to these questions we’ve moved the sale on.

• The customer agrees we’re business people, not patsies.
• We can build the how much, who and how into our strategy.
• We can make a realistic bid/no bid decision.

Check out these short articles to find out more about sales qualification, and how to do it.

Improving the Bottom Line

Sales Qualification Checklist

The Pro’s Secret

Understand the Process

Understand the Competition

Understand the Threats

Recruit a Coach

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Tagged as: Budget, Business, Customer, Customer relationship management, Marketing, Money, Sales, Sales and Marketing Productivity, Sales Qualification, sales_coach