Hey, this is the Daily Overpass! My name is Eric and I make apps. Now today, I want
to ask you, "Is it okay to ask someone what's your budget?"
Alright, now a few years ago I made a minute of Overpass video called "Don't ever tell anyone your
budget." I think it was like two years ago. And of all my videos, that has the
most thumbs down. Basically, what I said in it was, that if you're going to
get an app developed or of any kind of software developed and you
go to a developer and their first question to you is so tell me what's your
budget. Basically I said don't tell them. You know, it's none of their business.
Your budget is your own business. The things cost what they cost,
you know, it's up to them to come up with an estimate. It's up to them to come up
with something that they think would be agreeable to you and that what they
would think would be fair. Not something that's based on your budget. And of all
the videos that has the most thumbs down. People- it's generally hated
because I think a lot of people do that now. I saw- I was
doing some some research trying to see, you know, what's the best practice here.
There's two camps. You know, some people who says when somebody
comes to you and they have a problem and they're looking for solution,
it's up to you to give them the best solution possible based on their budget.
So if they come to you and say I only have this amount of money, you can
either pass on it or accept to do it but at a very limited way.
There's the other side of the argument that says, they come to you and
basically with requirements, you ask them what the requirements are and
then you come up with a quote or a ballpark estimate say being roughly
I think this is how much is going to cost. And if they don't have that budget
that's up to them to get that budget or if they can make that budget then
whatever. So both sides need to make sense. But you know and every so
often, like the way that we work, when we do work with clients is they
always email with like just a simple email saying, "Hey, I need an app.
How much does it cost?" And can't give an answer
based on that. So there's a lot more information that you need. So we
usually arrange like a 10 to 15 minute
chat over Skype or a phone call, where we'll, you know, to have
chat about what they're trying to achieve, then ask all the right
questions. As you know all the questions based on experience, do you want social
media integration, what platforms you want it on, all this kind of stuff.
We've been trying to stream that a lot lately by including-
rather than just scheduling that first meeting, we just send them a quick
questionnaire saying these are a few questions we're gonna ask,
you know, you have that kind of stuff. You know what kind of platforms, all the
stuff, you could brief summary of what it's gonna be,
do you need an NDA first, all that kind of stuff. Just so we get all that out of the
way. We don't waste any time, because you know time is money.
And you know sometimes, I'll have that first conversation like, it's way
too busy to do it ourselves, we'll have it with a partner
company and they'll sometimes sit in that first conversation
over Skype. It's not like they're hidden like they're just in the call.
So, I'll introduce them, but sometimes they don't want to ask questions
directly to the prospect, so they'll send me questions through
Skype like, ask him this, ask him that and a lot of times, it comes
up, ask him what his budget is and I say- I just ignore it. I say, no,
we don't ask that. Yeah, I'm opposed to asking what the budget is.
First of all, I've done a video that says never tell anyone your budget and I'm
just sort of opposed to it. This came up again recently because we have
somebody helping with that first meeting. And you know, more help
scheduling, all that kind of stuff. He was saying, "Why don't we ask what the
budget is in that first questionnaire email?" I was like, no we don't ask the
budget. We just talked to anybody and sometimes the budget-
you know, their budget is way too small, we can't do that. I thought, well then,
we- I think, we still need to talk to them. Let me
tell you why I say this. You know, you guys could agree with me or
disagree with me. I know that we're all busy and sometimes there's
people come to you with- they have a requirement and there's no way
that you could do it based on what they're willing to pay. Which is
fine, right? But you know, I always believe that you should hear everybody out.
So a lot of times, I'll talk just like a prospect. In fact, it's happened quite a
few times, when I talk to a prospect and we talk about a few things,
and I'll ask a few questions. I'll give them
a ballpark quote like I always try to give them. A ballpark quote before the
end of the call. Not wasting anybody's time saying, you know, based on
what you told me I think this would be probably between four to six thousand
pounds or whatever. Or whatever it is, that's not- you know, it's not a
general rule. It always depends. Every software project is different.
And then they can say, oh, that's way outside my budget. I'll
say, hey, sorry about that, but you know- sometimes I'll recommend
someplace else or say hey, you should try something like happy pie or
something you make the app yourself, all this kind of stuff. There's different
different options, I'm there to help. And a lot of times, they'll come back to
me later sometime. In fact, sometimes they'll come back to me like over a year
later. I had one guy who called me up said. "Eric, I don't know if you
remember me, but we spoke about two years ago." And I was trying to pretend like
I remembered who he was, but I didn't. So I'm sorry, I just don't remember. But
then, that's a project that we have going on at the moment which is kind of cool.
And it's all because we talked to everybody. You know, and my whole thing
was that this conversation I had this morning about whether or not we
should include that question in our initial questionnaire was like, let's say
they don't have a budget that's big enough. What do we do? Do we ignore them?
Do we not talk to them? Do we just like, "Oh no. Thank you."
And then- and this is what gets me about this, what gets me about this.
We've all been in a situation where we've been in a shop. Maybe like- maybe you're
12 or 13 years old and you walk into a shop and you know and the shop keeper
knows you don't have a lot of money, so they don't give you the time of day.
You're just, you know, in the way or maybe you don't have any
money at all, but you're just looking around. Or you go into a
shop that might be a bit more expensive and you feel like everyone's looking
down at you because they know you can't afford this stuff, but you know what, you
will someday. I can remember buying going into a book shop in town weeks ago.
All the time and the lady in there was so rude, it's like, you know, if you're not
buying anything you have to leave. And after a while,
you know, you start making a little bit of money as a kid, where you get
your first job and everything. The last thing you're gonna do is buy
from that lady. I always believed that anybody we
talked to, if they're not gonna be our client,
they might be one day. We're not in a position to turn anybody away. We all
know what it's like to be on the other end of that. And you know, the
fact of the matter is, is that with software, 80 percent of the time,
when someone calls you up, they have no idea how much is supposed to cost.
If you say, so tell me what your budget and they say I don't know, hundred
dollars? You're like, oh no, even no way we could do that! Haha! You know, are
you kidding me? No, because they don't know. They don't know if it's
gonna cost a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars or ten thousand dollars
or fifty thousand dollars or a million. They just don't know. So if
I went to go buy a rocket ship, it's a rocket ships came out and I had
to call a contractor and say I need a rocket ship and they say what's your
budget. And I said dude, just tell me how much it's gonna cost. This is what I
want, I want to go into space, it needs like three seats or whatever. Whatever I
need. But you know, tell me how much it's gonna cost and either I'm gonna spit my
coffee out and say, whoa! And then I might go away and think about it,
how can I get that kind of money or I might think I'll check somewhere else. Or
I might think that's never gonna happen.
But it's not up to me to decide how much is supposed to cost.
Anyway, a little bit of a rant there. Let me know what you guys think. Is
it- if somebody calls you up like say, if you do service work, if you do client
work and somebody calls you up, do you feel it's appropriate to ask them what
their budget is? Or you know, do you feel- yeah, from both sides of it, let's say,
you're the service provider, they come to you, they're looking for a project, is it
acceptable to ask them their budget? First. Second, if you're in the other
position and you're going to a service provider, do you feel it's acceptable for
them to ask you what your budget is or do you think it's better for them to
tell you the price and then you decide whether or not it's within your budget?
Anyway little bit of rant here today, but you know, it just gets on
my nerves. Anyway, that's it for today. I will talk to you, guys, tomorrow.