When should you ask about their budget? - Podcast Transcript - Alan Berg (2024)

When should you ask about their budget?

This is another listener suggestion, this time from Marylee in Connecticut. When should you ask the customer, couple or client about their budget. It’s not an easy answer, as it will be different for different price points, different services (some are easier to explain) and frankly, for each of us. You’ve probably heard me say that since all budgets are made up (credit to Phil. M. Jones for that), they can all be changed.

Listen to this new 9-minute episode for some ideas on how and when to talk about budgets, no matter where you are on the price spectrum.

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When should you talk about their budget? Listen to this episode and find out. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions Podcast. This is another listener suggestion, this time from Mary Lee in Connecticut. And she was asking, when should we talk about budget with couples or customers, really not just couples, but any kind of customer.

And it will depend upon a few factors. If you’re at the lower end of the price point, where you’re, you’re, that’s who you’re going after, you might decide to be more transparent on your pricing right up front, in which case budget shouldn’t be an issue. You’re already going after a more budget consumer, you put your prices out there, you get inquiries from people that.

already know how much you charge. And actually at any price point, this is the case. If you are more transparent about pricing up front, you can talk about budget sooner because you’ve already given them an idea of what you charge. You shouldn’t get inquiries from people who are way outside of that range.

You still will get some, but you’ll get way less. Matter of fact, that’s what a lot of my clients find when we become more transparent on their website. They get fewer inquiries, but they get less price objection because of the transparency of the pricing. And that’s assuming that your pricing really is transparent because I think as I’ve mentioned before on here.

Some people think their pricing is transparent, but then when you go there, you find out it’s not quite as transparent as you thought. One of the venues I know you have to, there’s the price per person, but then the ceremony price is on a different page. And then the tax and service is in a footer, so it’s not as clear, right?

Maybe a venue fee, other things like that, you have to kind of add them together. Yeah, it’s there, but you kind of have to know what you’re doing. And what, what they have to understand is when a couple goes from them to another person, another venue, to another, to another, you’re all displaying it differently, even if you all had it on your websites, you’re all displaying it differently.

So it’s not as easy to compare apples to apples as you think. So when should you talk about their budget? I believe that you should be selling to people’s results, not to their budgets. Therefore you don’t, if they don’t bring up budget early, you don’t have to bring it up. Because you’re going to sell the results that you do.

The results that only you can do. And if they want your results, they have to pay your price. Have you ever paid more for something than you initially intended to? I think the answer is yes. I would like to say for everybody. I don’t, I’ve never met anybody who said no to that. I’m going to say for everybody, but at least it’s almost everybody has experienced paying more for something than they initially intended.

Now, part of that is if we didn’t know what it cost, if we had no experience buying that cold framing, then maybe. We just were wrong in our budget. That’s it. Just wrong in our budget. I’ve told stories about that before. I just had an experience where we just bought something and we were dead on, right?

My wife and I had no experience with what, what that should cost. And we said, what do you think that’s going to be? And we came up with a number and we were, we were right there, just like right around there within 10 percent or so actually worked out really well. But we’ve also been wrong by 30 percent and 40%.

I think a lot of us have been there. So if you sell to the results. And that’s what this person did with us and selling us for our house. They sold the results that we wanted and then told us how much it was. And then we got to decide. And the time we spent 30 percent more is actually the same company a few years back.

We spent 30 percent more on this heating air conditioning unit for our house. We were wrong on our budget. Right? We couldn’t get the results we want at the number we originally wanted, so we had to pay more. And that’s the same with your customers, with your couples, with the parents for the mitzvahs and the kinseis, with the non profits and it, the results they want are the results they want.

And if they can’t get them at the budget they set, they either have to redo the budget Or compromise on the results that they want. So, I think you sell to their results. Again, top down selling is what I advocate, and that’s selling to the results they want, not to their budget. So, when should you bring up budget?

Now, once you’ve given someone a price, it’s okay to ask for the sale or ask if that works. And if you heard me talk about how to handle the four ways to handle price inquiries, right, tell them. Don’t tell them starting price and price range. You’ll know that some of the wording and this is in a shut up and sell more.

And why are they ghosting me? And some of the other books, which you, what you’ve heard me say is if you say to somebody that, you know, I don’t have enough details for your pride, if you’re wedding yet, or your event. But our prices range between here and here for events like that at that time of the year.

Most of our customers, couples, whatever, end up somewhere around here. Does something like that, something in that range work for your budget? So once you’ve been transparent, and I believe you should give them a number first before asking their budget, because if you ask their budget first, A, it’s probably wrong and B, they might even bring it down lower than what it really is just to hold back some because why spend all the money that we could spend if we could spend less, right?

That’s just human nature. If any of us can get the results we want spending less, why would we spend more? And the answer is we don’t. We only spend more because we want the other results. Some of which are intangible, by the way, right? Every new car is going to get us where we’re going, right? And if you needed seven seats, there’s a lot of seven seat SUVs out there.

Everyone will get them where you’re going. Why do you choose one over the other? It might be an intangible. It might be something like, this dealer is closer to me. It might be like, I like their warranty better, right? Which is, that’s more of a tangible, right? Or it might be, I like that brand better. I want, I want to be dressed Air quotes here in that brand car, so people see me driving that model, which by the way, may not be the more expensive model.

It could be somebody who purposely drives a car of a lesser mark, right? Less expensive one, because they don’t want to be seen in that other car because of the message that might send. I had that when I published wedding magazines, I didn’t want to drive too fancy of a car because I didn’t want my customers, some of which were struggling to start businesses to be like, Oh yeah, maybe with the fancy car here, that’s when, that’s why your rates is so high.

Right? Right. And the funny thing is I bought a used car for 7, 000, but it happened to be a red convertible. It was, it was 70, 000 miles. I pulled up in this 7, 000 used car and people went, Oh, missed the big shot with the red convertible. Right. So I was still sending the wrong message, even though it wasn’t a price message there.

So. When should you talk about budget? I believe transparency breeds trust and confidence. And if I give you a price or a price range, and I say, does something in here work, especially if you don’t, can’t give them an exact price, you know, you’re probably going to end up somewhere around here. Does something like that work with your budget?

Perfectly fine to ask, but if you ask it too soon, they could be holding back, right? Are they lying? I guess technically they are, but we’ve all done it. It’s that little white lie thing, right? So if you know you have 5, 000 to spend for something and somebody says, what do you want to spend? And you say, I don’t know, 3400, 4000 you held back some.

Did you lie? Kind of, but right where it’s human nature, we’re all doing that. So don’t put your customers in a position to lie to you because they’re holding back. Say you’re going to be somewhere in here. There’s something like that work, or where did you want to end up? And that’s where you can do that, right?

They’re entitled to ask for a better price, just like you and I are entitled to ask for a better price. We don’t always get it. And I know that because I’m doing this on a Mac, and I didn’t get a discount on my Mac here. And the camera that I’m doing this with, my center cam, I did not get a discount on that either.

And this microphone over here, this Audio Technica, didn’t get a discount on this either. Bought them anyway, right? So just because you don’t get a discount, It doesn’t mean you’re not going to buy it anyway. It doesn’t mean they’re not going to buy from you. So when should you ask for their budget? I believe be transparent first, give them an idea at least, and then ask what their budget is or ask if something like that works.

But if you ask too soon, you’re selling to their budget. You’re not selling to their results and if you’ve heard me say that a hundred times here, a thousand times, don’t sell to their budget, sell to the results they want. Show them the results that only you can give them. Because while other people can give them results and some of them will be good results, they won’t be yours.

I hope that helps you with the budget question. Thanks Mary Lee for the suggestion.

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I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [emailprotected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

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