Can you fit my budget?

Now here’s an interesting question.  If you’re doing sales in medical devices, you get this asked by doctors all the time.  And I understand because price and budget are important.  But more often than now, I run into customers who want a newer system with a used system budget.  And that’s when often things will get complicated.  Having a good x-ray purchase budget is the key!

If I get a customer who knows what they want and knows they can pay for what they want, my job would be the easiest one in the world.  And if that’s how the medical market works, they can probably replace my job with a simple online ordering form.  Fortunately (or not), that’s not how things work.

I often get customers who want top-of-the-line C-Arm but have a budget that doesn’t fit their wishlist.  Oftentimes, I ask how they arrived at that budget since sometimes their budgets are below the manufacturer’s cost of the unit.

But whether it’s realistic or not, I still go on my wild goose chase to find what my customer wants.  And soon or later, my customers realize that their budget doesn’t fit their expectations.  For some, that’s after the first quotation.  For others, it takes 6 months of searching and 10 quotations to do it.  And there are rare few, who refuse to accept and keep on search without ever buying.  Doesn’t matter how hard I search or negotiate, there’s the price range for everything and it isn’t much you can do about it.

There is one thing you CAN do.  Think about Financing with Low Payments up front + Discuss Opportunity Cost.  Because the faster you get that equipment into your office and start doing the procedure/cases you want, the faster you’ll earn your revenue.

So when you ask this question next time, make sure what you’re wanting fits your budget first.  Or if you’re not sure, simply ask.  I always give my customers a realistic range that I see in the market, to prepare them to be ready for what they will discover.