Prospects and clients often use ambiguous terms without realizing it. In fact, we all do it. We say things like, "I need this cheap," "Get that taken care of ASAP," or "I don't have a budget for that."
Any of those sound familiar? When your prospect or client says them, they're meaningless until you actually dig in.
We work with several nonprofits, as do many of our clients. It's common for me and my clients to hear nonprofits say something like, "Well, we're a nonprofit, so we don't have much money."
What exactly is "much money?"
When I hear that, I know I really need to dig in. It turns out that "much money" means different things for different people.
The same thing happens in the B2C world as well. A roofing client of mine was asking for some help once. He was talking to a prospect, and it came up that he wanted the work done cheaply. Then later, my client uncovered a service provider that prospect was using, and it wasn't a cheap one.
"Cheap" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone!
In that particular case, I recommended my client call the prospect back. I suggested he say something like, "Hey, you mentioned you wanted this to be cheap. Ballpark numbers, what are you wanting to spend to get this taken care of?"
Sometimes when you dig in, you find a prospect actually has more than enough money to get their problem taken care of. But you first have to make it about them and actually uncover what they're thinking.
Of course, that's far easier said than done. But if you have a client or prospect using ambiguous terms, you need to ask questions to uncover the truth.
