My client met with a prospect who was interested in consulting services to help streamline product development cycles. During the visit, the President said, “we could really use your help, but we don’t have a budget for this, give us your best pricing and we’ll see what we can do.” Not having budget and not having resources to pay for services are two different things. Listen closely to your prospects and customers, but don’t let negotiation tactics get you down. When it’s time to present your proposal, make sure you share with your prospect you listened and understood his/her concerns about expenses. Point out specifically how you’ve taken his/her comments into consideration into your proposal to make sure you can meet the confirmed needs and budget requirements.
Great comment. Over half of my customers didn’t have budget for the engineering CAD/tools I sold.
I had to be compelling enough for the prospect to “steal” from other budgets. It’s easy to take $20K from a landscaping budget if the engineering software proposed will help the company get to market 30-60 days faster.