Friday and time for another anecdote as the week winds down.
A while back, I was working with one of our clients who has a fairly complex sale in which they offer a high-end solution. Budget is one of the first qualifying questions in their sales process so we mirror that process in our sourcing. We ask candidates, “At what point do you qualify a prospect’s budget in your current sale?”
As I talked with each candidate, I asked them this question to see if they could discuss this topic and how they handled customers who were reluctant to share their budget. Most of the candidates did well with this question except for one candidate. His response came back rather quickly:
“I don’t. Everyone has the same price so the prospect knows what they are going to be spending for the service so I figure why ask?”
If you ever hear this response from a candidate, no matter what your sales model, run the other way as fast as you can.