Struggling with unexpected reactions to your sales proposals? Learn how mastering budget and sales decision conversations can help you close deals.
The fourth and fifth steps in the Sandler Selling System, Budget and Decision can be described as steps where a salesperson is not only finding out what they need to know about how a decision is being made, as well as the criteria made around that decision, but more importantly, is about correcting that info that is received from the prospect.
Discover how to develop a repeatable, measurable and recognizable sales process
Related Resources
Articles
- Are “Decisions” Becoming More Complex?
- Sales Closing Techniques to Put You Ahead of The Competition
- Building Value in a Conversation
Video
Case Study
White Paper
Video Transcript
So, the budget and decision steps are about not only finding out what you need to know as far as how a decision is being made and the criteria around that decision, but it's actually for the purpose of not collecting that information but correcting that information. The budget step is not finding out how much money they have, what they're going to do, and what their criteria are. It's finding out those things only to know if it's the best way for them to do things.
The decision step is about finding out who, what, where, when, why, and how a decision is made and making sure that the way that decision is going to be made is in the best interest of that prospect.
If I skip having that conversation, I'm not putting a framework on value, money, what things cost to solve, or anything else. It's almost like we're working into a black hole. We have to have that money conversation.
You know you've missed having the right conversation during the budget step when you're surprised by the reaction to your price. You're surprised by the fact that they don't have the money. You're surprised because they looked at your proposal and said, “Wow. This is much more than I thought” or “less than I thought.” You know you've missed it on the decision step when you find out later something you wish you had known before.
Having the right money conversation and the right decision conversation means that you actually get the outcome you want almost every time. That is, the prospect makes the right decision for the right reasons every single time.
