Sabri Suby explains how to respond when prospects claim they have no budget. Ask discovery questions to uncover past spending, throw out a deliberately high number to find their range, then price based on the outcome you'll deliver rather than what they say they can spend.
Hey, guys. This week on heysubree, I'm gonna be answering Valia Bick's question. She's written, hey, Sabri, how do you beat a we don't have a budget argument when it comes even before price is discussed? Thanks. Great question. Another one came in from enriched media, and they've said, pricing. How do you deal with clients who ask for a ballpark type quote on the spot? And how do you know when you aren't leaving money on the table? So I thought that I'd answer just both of these and kind of this topic in general of when you're speaking to a prospect on the telephone and they're either saying, like, can you give me a ballpark quote? Or we don't have a budget. So let me unpack the first one first being that we don't have a budget. So when. When someone says that they don't have a budget, of course they have a budget. They just want you to say your number first. And the way that you handle this is just throwing out a ridiculous, arbitrary to begin with. So you say, okay, awesome. So either I came back to you with $285,000. That would be all good. And they'd be, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, I don't have that much money. Okay, cool. So you do have a kind of budget. What are you kind of working with? What is it that you're trying to achieve? Right. That's if the price does come up early. However, with all that being said, realistically, you don't want to price anybody up unless you feel like that you can help them. Right? So what they are trying to do when someone asks you for a ballpark quote is that they are trying to control the frame. So the first thing that you want to do when someone says, hey, like, do you have, like a ballpark quote on this? And you'd be like, hey, like, you know, I need to first speak to you to see would even be a good fit to work with you. Right? That's me taking back the frame. Like, regardless of what the budget is, I need to qualify you to see if I feel like I can help you and if you would be a good fit to. To work with us. And so that's the first thing that you want to do, and you really want to start to do the discovery and find out exactly what are the pains that they're experiencing. What is the problem that they are trying to solve? What is the big benefit that they're trying to achieve. What have they tried in the past, what has worked? What hasn't worked? Why do they feel that the other solutions that they have tried in the past haven't gotten them the result that it is that they wanted? How much have they spent on those other solutions? Right? And then starting to test the waters, right? And if someone's like, Yeah, I spent $1,000 on Facebook ads, or I spent two grand on hiring a photographer or whatever it might be, right? Then you want to start to kind of unpack that a little bit and be like, okay, cool, like, how did you arrive at spending fifteen hundred dollars on ads? Or did you get quotes from multiple photographers? Like, why did you go with the 2k option? Why weren't you happy with that? Would you have been happy to pay more money if that would have gotten you the better outcome? Right. These are all little traps that you're kind of setting up in a call and closing doors. So you're arming yourself when it gets to the price that, you know, it's just their only focus is price. You can bring up those other past experiences that they've had in terms of, is this going to work for them? Right. So with that said, the thing that you want to really do is if someone said that they don't have a budget, I would throw out an arbitrary number really, really high. And then they're like, oh, no. Because then the next question that's going to come up after they're like, oh no, I don't have $283,000 is going to be like, what's the kind of ballpark? How much do you guys charge for these kind of services? Awesome. Well, I don't even know if you're going to be a good fit, right, to work with us. I need to find out what you're trying to achieve first. So. And then you go back to the problem. So, you know, there's a SA in business, the first person to say the number is the one that loses, right? And you know, if you're. If you've got a service and your price is variable based on the outcome and the level of, you know, work and service that you can provide to somebody, realistically, like, it doesn't matter about, you know, who says the price first. You know, in all reality, right, there's all these kind of little hacks and mindset stuff around that. But if someone's only got a thousand dollars to spend, right, and you that your services are $2,000, what does it really matter if you say your price first? Right. They're not qualified in Any case, right? If it's a bigger deal, the focus needs to not be who says the price first, but it's really understanding the problem intimately and then looking at what it would actually take to achieve that, right? Without cutting on quality, without cutting on the delivery of service or the time and speed that you're able to deliver that. And going as high as it needs to to serve that prospect and that client the best way. It's not about just extracting as much money as you can out of a client, right? The amount of value that you get is directly proportionate to the amount of value that you provide to that person. So what you really want to focus on is offering your highest value proposition to them, which is going to be your highest price, right? And then seeing how they sit with that and then making it feel fully clear that anywhere that you go based on price from this point is not going to get them the optimum outcome in terms of speed and value. And then that will dictate. Okay, cool. That price is too expensive, right? I've told you how much it costs in order to really get the best service and the most value in the quickest amount of time possible. Realistically, what it is, what is it that you're working with, right? And then they might tell you their price, and then it's ultimately about finding and splitting the difference and getting that middle ground of, you know, what is going to get them the best outcome and realistically, how much money that they've got. And it's in between those two that the sweet spot is for your pricing. I hope that helps you. If you enjoyed this video, please like and subscribe. We're dropping a video like this almost every single day on YouTube and if you've got any questions, leave them in the comments box below with heysubri and I'll do my best to get in there and get that answered.
