A question I wish I’d asked upfront that could’ve saved us a lot of heartache.
We were about 25 minutes into a 30-minute call that had been going really well.
Our prospective client (a mid-size senior living company) had been asking all of the right questions. “What other clients have you worked with?” “How long are your projects?” “What types of ROI have your clients seen after working with you?”
I was feeling hopeful that this client was going to convert to a six or even twelve-month project: normally $52k or $82k, respectively.
At minute 25, the call took a turn.
“So, what is your budget like for this type of project?” I asked, expecting an answer that would reflect what they were wanting to get out of the experience (which was a lot.)
“Well, let’s see…” the one woman started. “Each building could allot $500…”
My eyes widened.
“Sorry, did you say that each building could allot $500?” I asked. “Is that, like, $500 a month or…?”
”No, $500 for the whole project,” she explained. “We probably have about $5k for the project.”
I was stunned.
“Um…sorry, our projects start at $25k and that’s for a 3-month engagement.”
“Oh, yeah, we don’t have that,” the other woman chimed in.
I saw my team’s faces fall over the Zoom screen. They knew this wasn’t going anywhere.
“We can’t really do anything for $5,000 for one month of work,” I explained, slowly. “We could give you access to our online education, for sure, but we can’t build anything that you’d be happy with for that little amount of money and that little amount of time.”
“We couldn’t get a logo?” the first woman asked, incredulous.
“No,” I let out a little sigh. “The designer is at least $1,500 out of our pockets and it takes weeks to come up with a name and then get a logo done. We’d have four weeks and then a good chunk of our budget would be gone.”
I realized after this call that I could’ve saved us all a lot of heartache if I’d simply asked one question upfront: “Is this a $500 project or $50,000 project?”
We would’ve learned that it was a low-budget project and pivoted accordingly, even if that meant skipping the call.
Because I hadn’t asked this, we’d wasted 30 minutes on a call and even more time researching the company and thinking about what questions to ask. (Not to mention all of the emails that we sent prior to having the call.)
You also need to be willing to drop a prospective client if what they’re suggesting just doesn’t make sense.
