There is more that you can do to qualify your prospect. Your wealth of business intelligence and sources can help you. But let’s look at the personal side.

You can use what you have learned about handling objections to get more financial information. You could start an objection-handling style process with these simple words: “I know people have their reasons for hesitating about discussing their budget, but could I ask about your concern about sharing this piece?”

You did a little alignment move with the “people have” part. And you avoided making it sound like an obstacle they should be attached to by merely calling it “hesitating,” which implies being about to do something, but just hesitating for a moment. If you said they “are hesitant” that would amplify it into a state of being rather than a fleeting feeling, so the wording is very important.

I don’t need to pry into all the details of your finances, of course, I would just like to know about your budget for this kind of thing because I can help best when I understand your goals.”

In that sentence, you reduced the alarm factor, by showing respect for their privacy with, “I don’t need to pry.” You also used the automatic trigger of a “because” clause, after you asked again for the information. You even avoided saying “but” as in, “but I would like to know,” by saying, “I would just like to know.” That’s integration! Keep it up!

From there, you can use any of the objection handling patterns from my sales process.