Habit 33: Know Every Customer/Prospect’s Fiscal and Budget Constraints

December 21, 2016 Selling Comments Off on Habit 33: Know Every Customer/Prospect’s Fiscal and Budget Constraints

To continue with the “Account Development Habits”, let’s look at Habit 33: Know Every Customer/Prospect’s Fiscal and Budget Constraints.

What does this really mean? The answer is: it’s very simple.

Fiscal constraints are: The time of year that the customer/prospect’s fiscal year begins and ends and the methodologies used to approve budgets.

Budget constraints are simply:

• The timing of capital budget submittals
• The timing of capital budget approvals
• The timing of capital fund releases

Obtaining this information is simple. Simply ask and the prospective customer or customer will answer.

The more important question is why do you want to know this information? This information is not of much use if the product or service being sold is not a capital product or service. That is, if the customer/prospect does not need to go through a formal budget submission process. Another way to say this is; if the customer/prospect is buying things for everyday manufacturing or processing that will be expensed and not capitalized, then the above information is not necessary.

If however, the product or service being sold must be capitalized, then the above information is crucial in determining key events in the sales cycle. Not knowing a prospect/customer’s fiscal and budget constraints makes it virtually impossible to follow an “Opportunity Plan.” This makes it very difficult to influence all the variables that impact the sale and therefore makes selling much more difficult than it has to be. Why would you want to do that?

“A Habit” is not work, but just a thing that is done every day and knowing your customer/prospect’s fiscal and budget constraints is critical to your success in sales and can easily become a Habit.

TIME MANAGEMENT. For Top Performers every task is planned and focused on the goals that earn the results. Top Performers plan and then engage. They act on their plans, they work hard and they get results.

Coaching these skills is a critical part of what we do. We are here to help you develop and implement your Strategic Plan and coach and develop the skills to implement the plan successfully.

We are having great success coaching and implementing these methods and skills and our clients love it!