How do I find out budget earlier?

How Do I Find Out Budget Earlier?

Everyone wants to know the budget early—but chasing it too soon can cost you the sale.

In today’s Question of the Day, I step up on the soapbox for a moment: solve the problem first, then figure out how to pay for it. When you lead with budget, you risk shrinking the solution before you even understand the need.

In this episode, we cover:

•  Why focusing on the problem first creates better outcomes 
•  How to seed plant budget awareness without forcing the conversation 
•  The importance of conditioning for price throughout the call 
•  Why you should offer financing on all options, not just as a last resort 
•  How to pivot to monthly payment thinking to align the right solution with affordability 

If you’re trying to balance discovery, value, and budget without losing control of the call, this episode will help you do it strategically.

Have a Question? - Submit your questions to chrish@nexstarnetwork.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome to the question of the day. Today's question is from Ryan in Tennessee. And Ryan asks, I keep getting stuck on customers' budgets. I always present, and then the objection is it's not in their budget or they can't afford it. How can I find out their budget sooner? That's a great question. And I have some strategies that I want to dive into, but before we dive into those strategies, I want to emphasize one point first. Maybe get on my soapbox for a minute. And so the the soapbox moment I want to uh address first is I want to make sure that we're solving the problem first. Like that's the main focus. That that's the focus of the entire process is solving the problem. Whether that's a technician going out there to fix something or solve an issue, or a salesperson going out with a replacement type of solution. I want that to be the focal point. I want that to be the majority of the conversation. Everything else is focused on just solving that problem. And those conversations about payment and budget are secondary. I'm not saying they're non-existent. We're going to go over some strategies, how to how to sprinkle that in, how to weave it into your process. But I just see so many salespeople that were just payment focused right up front. Like in the auto industry, you go in and it's all about the payment. We're figuring out like what can you afford first? And let's get you pre-approved. And like we're selling on a payment. We haven't even found the car I like yet. Like, I haven't even decided I'm buying a car. Why, why would I fill out pre-approval and and pulling on my credit when I haven't even found a car yet? Right. And it's the same thing in trades here. So we're we're leading with payment and what you can afford. And the customer hasn't even decided if they're doing this yet, right? Haven't even decided if I'm replacing yet. Haven't even decided if I'm going to do the work yet or do the work with you yet. Like, I haven't even made any of these decisions. Like, why are you ramming all this down my throat of like how I'm going to pay for it? Like I said, not non-existent. I'll go over some opportunities to sprinkle this in, but I don't want it to be the main focus. And this is true of all industries. This is like if we're talking about HVAC repairs or replacements, if we're talking about plumbing or or bigger tickets, like a water heater or repipe or sewer or something like that, electrical, like repanel, rewire, or even you know, smaller fixes. But like this is true of everything. The reality is take away all of our titles: plumber, electrician, technician, whatever, salesperson. Like we're we're all problem solvers. That's our title. We're all problem solvers. And we get paid based on the amount of problems we can solve. And so if we're going to a customer's home and we're a problem solver, we're helping them solve the problem. That's what they're we're we're there to do. And then we'll figure out how to pay for it. And that's the situation I want to get into. I want to get into the situation of here's the solution. Now we just got to figure out how to pay for it. So let's talk about how we we sprinkle this in, though, right? So we're problem solving first, but then how do we how do we weave this into our process here? So first would be at the comfort survey. So there is a very important question you can ask at the comfort survey. And and again, we're problem solving, okay, focusing on the problem, but there is one question I'm gonna ask, and that question is going to be what payment would you be comfortable with a solution today? I'm just gonna ask that question. Basically, what payment would you be comfortable with? Okay, and then tie it into whatever your trade is. But what payment would you be comfortable with? And there's gonna be three ways that a customer is gonna answer this question. Okay, so this is pretty early in the process. What payment would you be comfortable with? Many customers are just gonna answer it. They're gonna say, I don't know, we'd be comfortable with about 250 bucks, right? Great. Now you can build around that. I know the customer is gonna be comfortable with that payment. Some customers are gonna respond and say they're paying cash. Great. I identified they're paying cash. I'm still gonna weave all this stuff in because they may switch at some point. They may decide they want a bigger package or a bigger, uh, a bigger option. So they they may switch. Option C is they're not gonna answer. That's gonna be pretty rare, but just keep moving forward. This is not at this point in the process, early on, this is not the hill I'm gonna die on. Because remember, I'm I'm problem solving up front. So I'm gonna ask this question what payment would you be comfortable with? And they're either gonna answer it, they're gonna tell me they're paying cash, or they're not gonna answer it. And if they don't, just keep moving forward. Not a hill I'm gonna die on at this point. But I don't know, eight or nine times out of ten, you're going to identify either a payment or they're paying cash at that point. One time out of ten, they're not gonna answer. Great, keep moving forward. Not the hill I'm dying on at this point. So then let's get into option two now. Option uh uh two, or strategy two, I guess would say uh be better. Strategy two would be price conditioning. So towards the end of my my questions, my exploration, looking at the situation, like right before I'm about to present, I'd want to get into price conditioning. And I don't want to do this earlier. Like, there's some traps to fall in when you're price conditioning. Like right when you arrive, customer might ask you, like, well, hey, what's this gonna cost? Right? I kick that can down the road at that point. Like, I haven't even I haven't even looked at your home, haven't you even looked at what you have? Like, I haven't even asked you any questions. Like, I don't know yet. If I did know, I just could have told you over the phone, right? Like, and so kick kick that can down the road. But now, now you've asked your questions, uh, you've looked at the home and and their situation, right? Like you, you got a pretty good idea, high, low, what what this is gonna be. And you can weave that in. And there's a very specific way that I weave this in for price conditioning. And so maybe too much time for this call here, but jump on a call with me and we can discuss it on a call and go over specifically how we do that. But when you weave in that price conditioning, what it does is now the customer knows about what those options are gonna cost. And this is gonna remove sticker shock. Because what happens is uh when a customer gets sticker shock, it triggers anxiety. And anxiety triggers the fight or flight response. And so think of your customers as like a pond. They're just a calm pond. And when you drop that price, that first option, the most expensive option, when you drop that one on, it's like you're throwing a big old brick into that pond and it's causing waves. Those waves are the anxiety, okay? And that's what triggers that fight or flight. That fight or flight is they kick you out of their home or they come up with an objection of why they don't want to move forward, something like that. But what happens with those waves is those waves, they eventually subside, right? Everything calms down again. And that's what price conditioning does. Price conditioning draws that sticker shock out before the presentation, because I don't want them to have waves of anxiety in the presentation. That's when they're going to dig in and have an objection. I want to move through and solve these problems logically. And so price conditioning will draw out that sticker shock, draw out that anxiety early. But then by the time I present, now that's all gone. The pond is calm again. And now we can look at the options and discuss them logically without those waves of anxiety hitting my customers here. Because all the options I'm gonna go over, they're all great options. I just I just need the customer to pick the one that works for them, right? And I'm not gonna tell them which one that is. So that that's the thought process I want the them to have going into this. So price conditioning will get us there. And it's also gonna be an opportunity that seed plants financing is is built into all of these solutions, right? So I remove sticker shock, and this is the second spot that I'm seed planting financing. But again, at this point, I'm not getting into any specifics. I'm not taking a deep dive on what our financing looks like, like I'm not doing any of that. All I've done so far is I asked them early on what payment they'd be comfortable with, and now I'm seed planting that we have financing. That's it. So let's move on to opportunity number three. List it on all of your options. Like financing should be built into all of your options. And so when you build your options, there should be like the total number and then the the finance number, the payment number. Even if they said they're paying cash, you're going to build that in because they may pivot, they may change their mind. They they may decide that they want a bigger package or or saw value in some other accessory or something. And so I want that built in so they can see it. Some customers also just decide that's a smarter move with their money, that they can finance it. Like if you have like a 0% interest or something like that, they can finance it, allow their money to work for them, and and they're actually making more money off of this. So uh I'm offering it on every single option. It's built into my options. And if they answered earlier and told me, hey, we're comfortable with a $250 payment, I'm building my options around that as well. Now, that doesn't mean when I build my options that I'm not going over that 250 mark, because we we all do the same thing. We all have that number in our head that we're like, yeah, I don't want to go over that number. But then there's a secondary number in the back of your head that that's the real number that you would go up to, right? So at the beginning of this conversation, I may have said 250, I didn't want to go over 250, but that was before you went over those indoor air quality and the humidifier and all those things that are gonna make my life better. Dang it, now I want those things. If I'm gonna do this, I want those things as well. I'll probably be willing to go up to 350 bucks now. So when you build those options, I may build an option that has a $350 payment on it. And the customer may not go with that option, but they may if they saw value in those things. So I'm not not gonna go over what the customer told me, but I'm gonna be very conscious of what they told me they were comfortable with, and I'm gonna build that into all of my options here. So that's that's opportunity number three. Build it into all your options. Opportunity number four, be ready to pivot. Be ready to pivot. Financing. Financing really is an objection handling tool. It's it's a tool designed to handle the objection of I just can't afford this today. And that's so true of all the trades. I don't know anybody that that saves money specifically for these things. I mean, I'm sure there's somebody, but but but nobody's putting money aside to replace their HVAC equipment. Nobody's putting money aside to repipe their house, nobody's putting money aside because they need to rewire their home. Like no, nobody's doing that, right? And so that that's what financing is for. Financing is that solution to that that problem that you have, that objection of I can't afford it. So so this is when I describe financing, this is how I describe it to every single customer. I say financing allows you to get the solution you need at a payment you can afford. I'm gonna say that again. Financing allows you to get the solution you need at a payment you can afford. That's what financing does. And so be ready to pivot as you're going through that presentation and that customer is like, oh, I can't afford this. I don't have the money, I don't have it in my budget. Be ready to make that payment. Hey, let's look at financing because that's what financing is. Financing allows you to get the solution you need at a payment you can afford. And then be ready to dive into your financing and go over your financing, the short-term options, the long-term options, right? Be ready to talk about all of these options are simple interest loans. Simple interest loans mean you can pay early, you can pay extra. There's no prepayment penalty. Because in the trades, like we have we have some big ticket items, and those will stretch out to 10 or 12 year financing. Well, anytime you have financing going out that far, the interest rate goes up. There's more risk to the lender there. So that so those are higher interest rates, right? But they're also simple interest loans. So when you stretch it out 10, 12 years, you have a small payment, higher interest rate, but I can pay that early, pay that extra. And if I pay it off early, I don't I don't that interest doesn't accrue over that entire time. So be ready to talk about simple interest loans with the customer because it gives them that small commitment that they can afford, so they can get the solution they need at a payment they can afford, but it's also a simple interest loan they can pay it off early, pay it off extra, and that interest doesn't hit them over the entire time. So there's there's four strategies right there. So if we're running into budget conversations, budget challenges, right? The the big picture, focus on the solution first, because I want to work into a situation where we figure out a solution, and now we just gotta figure out how to pay for it. What a great situation to be in. They're bought in on the solution, they're bought in on you. We just gotta figure out how to pay for it. That's the easy part, right? But weave into your process, the question up front, what payment would you be comfortable with, price conditioning, draw out that sticker shock right before the presentation, list it on all of your options, and then be ready to pivot. Because financing is the the tool that allows you to get the solution you need at a payment you can afford. And this works, this this works. I just this week was talking to a plumbing company, and they were doing almost no financing whatsoever. And now over the last 30 days, we've been working on these strategies right here of weaving financing in. And they're still not where they want to be, but they're financing about 36% of their their sales that they're making here. So they really want to be around 70%. But so they're halfway there. Their average sale went up about $7,000. Their average sale went up $7,000, and they're not even where they want to be yet. Financing allows you to get the solution you need at a payment you can afford. That's today's question of the day. If you're enjoying question of the day, follow, share, give a rating. Question of the day is on major streaming platforms. If you have a question, reach out to me via email. It'll be listed below in the show description. Let's get your question answered. And if you're a next star member, schedule a call with me. Let's address this one on one and get very specific to your situation. I'm Coach Chris. We'll see you tomorrow.