The Budget Step...and the Monsters Under the Bed

By Cal Thomas, Sandler Training
​A critical part of the Sandler qualification process is finding out what the available budget is. One of the things we’ve found consistently is that most salespeople are deeply uncomfortable with the idea of coming right out and asking a decision-maker how much money is available to solve a problem.  Most of them skip the discussion entirely, then try to sneak in their pricing at the end of their presentation. Does that work? No.  The big question is: Why are so many salespeople so resistant to initiating this discussion?  And the answer is: there is a monster under their bed.

Back when we were little kids, and our parents turned off the lights at the end of the day, we were afraid of the monsters that we thought lived under our beds. They would cause us fear, doubt, and worry—so much so that we even convinced ourselves sometimes that we could see and hear those monsters.

This monster-under-the-bed example may seem like a faraway experience… but to sell effectively, we need to get a handle on which monsters are still under our beds and are still causing us to fear, doubt, worry, and make bad decisions.
 
GET A HANDLE ON THE MONSTERS
Sure, a little time has gone by, and we’ve grown up, and we no longer need our parents to come in and soothe us so we can go to sleep. But you know what? That doesn’t mean we got rid of the monsters. They just took different forms and showed up in different spaces: our locker, our dorm room. Eventually, they followed us to work and took up residence in our desks and telephones and computers.

Some of the biggest monsters actually come from Mom and Dad! If, while we were growing up, they told us, “Don’t talk to strangers,” or, “It’s rude to talk about money,” or, “Money is the root of all evil,” – or, if we’re really unlucky, if they happened to say all three of those things – then whether we realize it or not, we’ve probably still got a monster under the bed.

That monster is keeping us from selling effectively. It’s keeping us from getting the information we need to qualify opportunities and strengthen relationships.

Parents and others who supported us as we were growing up gave us rules because they cared about us and wanted to protect us, but we need to recognize that some of those rules are no longer serving us. Yes, we’re professionals now, grownups… but most of us still have monsters that can cause us to freeze up at important moments when we’re interacting with buyers.

MINDSET RESPONSIBILITY
Our challenge to notice and assume personal responsibility for our own mindset. Is it a mindset of fear, doubt, and worry? Or is it one of confidence and conviction in our message? If it’s the former, we have some work to do on our self-talk and our self-concept. That’s how you get the monster out from under your bed. You change your self-talk and change your self-concept.

We tell our clients: You can talk yourself in or out of greatness in an instant. In fact, we can talk ourselves out of greatness the minute we start fantasizing about bad outcomes that may never actually happen—and don’t even matter if they do! For example, “They know more than I do, and if they find out they will disapprove of me.” Or: “I don’t know all the details about our product/service, and if they find out, they will disapprove of me.” Or (here’s the big one): “If I ask about the budget, they will disapprove of me – or maybe stop talking to me altogether.”

Here’s an important reality check: We’re not having this conversation with the buyer in order to be liked.

IT’S NOT ABOUT BEING LIKED
Once we realize that – once we get rid of the monsters under our bed and internalize that – asking directly about the budget becomes a whole lot easier.
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