There's Never Budget, and Yet There's Always Budget | Ep. 18

Most sellers have never made a big software purchase. Meredith Chandler hadn't either before she stepped into leadership. Now that she's been involved in dozens of big-ticket software purchases, the way she coaches sellers has completely changed.ㅤMeredith walks through the three things an AE needs to unlearn to consistently win big deals. First, stop asking whether your buyer has budget. Companies move money toward whatever becomes urgent enough, so the real question is whether the problem you solve is important enough to move budget around for. Second, the person who feels the pain usually can't actually spend the money, and that money travels a very specific path to get released. Third, "we don't have budget" almost never means the money doesn't exist.ㅤShe's been on the side that approves the budget time and time again, and she says that exact sentence herself all the time. What it usually means is that this isn't a priority right now, or there's no bandwidth. That's not a closed door for a strong rep willing to put in the work. Brought to you by Aligned.ㅤ📌 What We CoverWhy there's never budget and yet there's always budget, and what the leaky roof teaches you about where money actually sitsWhy underperformers believe budget is a fixed pot of money sitting around in an account somewhere, and why there is no fixed potWhat to ask instead of "Do you have budget?": what they funded recently, and why, so you learn what urgent enough looks like at that specific companyPutting the cost of their problem into real numbers so it can outrank the other things competing for the same dollarsWhy pouring everything into one excited champion leaves deals dragging for months before they slowly disappearThe question that surfaces the approval path: "Walk me through how something like this typically gets approved"How to find which budget the money comes out of and who owns it, and why that's the person to get involved earlyWhy offering a discount is the worst response to "we don't have budget," and what building a business case to earn the budget does instead ㅤ🔗 ResourcesAligned, the AI deal workspace built to develop champions with mutual action plans and keep deals from stalling out. Build your first room for free.