Handling the “No Budget” Objection

Ideas in this posting will help you: Save time in your sales process.

Your Buyer: “I’m sorry, I don’t have any budget to spend right now.”

You: “Oh really? I guess we will have to put this proposal on ice for now, huh?”

Ouch!! If you find yourself in a sales situation playing to this unfortunate ending, stop and do a quick rewind. There is an effective way to handle this common objection and maintain momentum on a revenue generating opportunity that threatens to grind to a halt.

Like others, the ‘No Budget’ objection often belies the true underlying concern. Behind ‘it may be “I don’t see that my problems are great enough to do anything about right now.” Or worse “I don’t see enough value in what you are offering to free up money to spend on it.”

Try this strategy: 

1. Put the buyer’s stated lack of funds aside for the moment.
2. Focus on displaying that their current needs are significant, and there are real downstream implications of not addressing them now.
3. Show convincingly that you are uniquely qualified to help them avoid those implications.

Often budget can be found if a project is deemed to help a buyer avoid a big problem or capture a great upside opportunity. Demonstrate how you can help, in dollars and cents and an improved situation [that involves you]. 

Funds are regularly diverted from one project to another if the upside is determined to be big enough [I know of one buyer who put off hiring an FTE to divert those salary dollars to a project that was deemed to be of great upside to the company]. Your job is to articulate that upside clearly and compellingly.