What's the budget?

Isn’t it nice when a potential client tells you their budget before you put together your proposal?

That way you can be sure you hit their numbers perfectly.

But let’s face it, it doesn’t happen often does it? Budget is a closely guarded secret, an adversarial tool in the war of attrition between you and your client.

Firstly, why is it so adversarial? That’s surely a bad sign for your future relationship. That’s why, for some of us, putting prices up front is helpful - it acts as a filter.

But you can also spin this around.

Instead of asking “how much are you willing to spend?” You can ask “what are you going to gain from this?” “If everything goes according to plan what difference does this make to your business?”

Everyone loves to talk about how great their idea is and you can use their measures of success to calculate the value of the project.

And then use that to price your proposal.