How to Get the Budget You Need and Deserve,
with a Lot Less Effort
Almost everything
you've been told about how budgets are set isn't true.
If you
jump through hoops to justify/quantify/rationalize/cut
or supersize your numbers,
you're playing
with a stacked deck. (Stacked against you.)
1. Do NOT focus on
money
It's the very
last thing you should discuss!
DO focus on the
senior team's headaches.
Find out what's keeping the most senior members "awake at night."
(FUD is a biggie for many execs: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)
2. Package your need for money to perfectly match the senior exec's
very personal concerns
Example: "Without
a budget to have......., employee buy-in on your new initiative will be in
serious jeopardy." DO NOT emphasize your department's needs or even the
strategic plan. Focus on your boss's PERSONAL agenda. Your goal is to make a
connection with him as a person, not a bank. Address what worries HIM most. Make
that worry your deadline and key message. Like: plan X is in danger - but with
two more people, for six weeks, plan X is out of danger.
3. Your first
budget meeting with the Poobah should last no more than 15 minutes
Make your pitch,
but also make a favorable impression. The shorter the better. No handouts! Just
you, and the key message. What can you accomplish in 15 minutes or less? See
Step 4.
4. Closing your
pitch:
DO NOT ask for money! Ask for another meeting
Do not mention
any numbers in the first meeting. Your goal is to get invited back to a second meeting;
if you do, you should have an 80% to 90% success rate in
getting all or much of the budget you are requesting, because your Poobah helped
initiate
and shape the request.
The
Budget-Setting Secret Hidden in Plain Sight
Why this four-step
process works with 80% to 90% success rates...
Throughout human
history in most of the world, budget-setting has never been
about money or strategy.
Setting budgets
is about power, control, personalities,
dreams,
fantasies, revenge, pettiness, greed, caring, altruism, tithing, perception,
sharing,
fun, passion, vision, aspirations, discrimination, conflict, bartering,
compromise,
paybacks, payoffs, partnerships, and friendships
- to name a few.
Like work, budgets are personal. Even great business leaders with endless
amounts of integrity, who truly follow their plans and strategies cannot rewrite
the law that says budgets are, and always will be, personal. The people who get
the most money
know this.
Remember: every budget request is
about great dialogue between you and that executive. Do not present.
Talk. Discover what keeps YOUR Grand Poobah awake at night. If you don't have
regular access to the senior team, this will require some homework. Explain
(even if it's a white lie) that you need to know this better to rally your
troops. If you can't gain immediate access to the lieutenants, look to their
admin's. They know everything!
For More Money in Better Times:
In the years when budget
requests are not too harshly dealt with, try this approach. A senior vice
president at a Fortune 50 company says that during the 1990s, it got him tens of
millions of dollars on scores of budget requests.
1.
Have your team create their Wish List for tools, training, and support services.
2.
Bid that list out, as if you are going to purchase those items.
Compile
all the support documentation that your company's accounting wonks require.
3. Write
up a one-page - (no longer!) - Business Case for the purchase: State the need or
problem that this purchase will solve, the return on investment, costs, product
description, vendor credentials, etc. Put the one-pager on top of the support
documentation, and place it all in a folder.
4. Be
prepared for year-end: Keep ten or more of these folders at the ready. About a
month before year-end close, lots of execs will be scrambling to spend whatever
is left in this year's budget so they can get at least that much again next
year. And there you are: with ten or more budget requests fully organized, just
needing a signature.
5.
Score big bucks! Remember the First Law of Workplace Behavior:
Make it
easier for people do things your way, and you'll get your way more often. Make
it easy for people to quickly spend their year-end stashes, and you'll get more
of those stashes.
