The unwritten rules of budget approval

To get approval, you need to read the room

👋 Hi, it's Greg and Taylor. Welcome to our newsletter on everything you wish your CEO told you about how to get ahead.

I see this advice on LinkedIn all the time:

“Ask for more budget than you need.” “You’ll never know unless you ask.” “The worst they can say is no.”

I think this is terrible advice, especially for people working with c-suite executives.

The worst outcome of asking for more budget isn’t “no” – it’s damage to your boss’ perception of your business judgment.

C-suite executives value people who understand context and know what’s important to the business in the moment (not just themselves). Persuading or bulldozing your way to more shows that you don’t get this – or you don’t care. Neither are good.

I want you to get a “yes” when you ask for things – but that also means knowing whether to ask in the first place. There are three steps to this:

1. Read the room

2. Be obvious, not persuasive

3. Move fast with a yes, find an alternative with a no

Here’s how.

Greg

Step 1: Read the room

The #1 mistake people make in asking for budget is showing they don’t understand the context – the state of the business, the availability of resources (capital or people), or their status compared to other teams.

Before you make a budget request, ask yourself:

• Where is the business financially? Are we in growth mode or cost-cutting mode – or worse, do-nothing mode?

• Has anything been approved for funding recently? (You’re looking for signals that the bank is open).

• What are the top priorities right now, and does my request align with them?

• What other departments or teams are also competing for resources?

• What’s my standing with the person I’m asking?

In 2025, the bar for budget requests is high. Today's business case needs a 5-10x ROI. It isn’t enough to say that you’re underwater / overwhelmed – your budget request needs to directly impact business metrics. And be current with your data – “this worked last time” (aka 2 years ago) is citing a radically different business environment.

Your standing also matters. If you just made another request last month, don’t expect to get a warm reception. If your team is underperforming, same thing. Look for a moment where you’ve proven the effectiveness of your strategy, then ask to double down on it.

If you need a test to read the room, here’s a good one. Think: What would my skip level think about this request? If you’re asking the CEO for money, their boss is the board. Would the board see this as a smart, strategic investment, or a distraction? If you have access to the skip level, you could even float the project idea (NOT the budget request) to them (e.g., “I am starting to see an interesting opportunity…”).

Step 2: Be obvious, not persuasive

Executives generally don’t like getting a sales pitch. I don’t want budget to go to the most persuasive person in the room – I want it to go to the most obvious business case.

A good business case doesn’t have to be long. In fact, if I get a 5-page document, I usually assume the person doesn’t have a good business case and is trying to over-sell it.

Instead, you should succinctly lay out:

• The ask. Don’t bury the lede or hide the request. All asks do one of two things: make the business more efficient (lower costs) or grow the business (increase revenue). I’m shocked at how few requests make this clear in the first 60 seconds.

• Expected ROI, in what timeframe. Ideally this is revenue, but it can be indirect – such as “this new role will generate x hundred more leads in Q2” or “content production will 5x in 2025, and we have evidence that content production generates sales.”

• Upside and downside. Lay out the risks and how it could go wrong, and what you’ll do if it goes right (there’s often risk involved in this, too).

• Other options you considered. Show that you thought about alternatives and went with this request for a reason. Present a table of the ways you considered getting to the same outcome.

• Feasibility and blockers. What’s standing in the way of realizing the ROI that you’ve promised?

The style and quality of your request is important too. You don’t need to “sell” the request, but you do need to be buttoned-up and prepared. There’s no such thing as a casual budget request – take it seriously, and you will be taken seriously.

And by the way, NEVER use these rookie “leverage moves”. They’ve worked on me in the past (when I was an inexperienced CEO) but good executives see right through them.

• “I need approval now to execute on time”

• “I have the best person to hire for this, but we need to move fast”

• “We are lucky that this amazing vendor even wants to take us on”

• “Our competitor is doing this so we should too”

• “I ran this past the CFO and she liked the idea”

Step 3: Move fast with a yes, find an alternative with a no

If you get a yes, move quickly to implement it. I hate approving budget and then finding out the project hasn’t made much progress a month later.

The next day, write the job description, launch the ads, own the execution. (In fact, if you have the person or contractor already chosen, I love that. Don’t tell me in the pitch – it shouldn’t be pressure to get my approval – but tell me a day later that the person has been onboarded. Baller move.) Once you’ve started executing, report on early wins and progress toward your promised ROI.

If you get a no, be gracious. You don’t have to be happy, but accept the answer professionally. Getting pissy is career-limiting behavior. Once you’ve processed, come back with a workaround that shows you still care about solving the problem. If someone’s request gets denied and they stop caring about the outcome altogether, I think they were never really serious about it.

If it’s not clear WHY you got a yes or a no, make sure to ask (either in the meeting or as a follow-up). If it’s a no, you’ll get good feedback on the state of the business or how to adjust your ask next time. If it’s a yes, you’ll make sure you got approval for the right reason (you might uncover some crazy misaligned expectation that you want to know sooner rather than later).

My advice

Don’t make requests you don’t have deep conviction in. You’re going to be held responsible for the ROI in your business case, so be confident (enough) you can deliver it. Executives trust people who ask less frequently – but with more conviction.

Asking for more resources shouldn’t be your first choice for every problem. There’s a reason Tobi Lutke said “you can’t hire until you prove AI can’t do it” – that’s the mindset of most CEOs right now. Be creative in what you’re asking for – contractor vs. FTE, AI vs. contractor, the cheaper, less-well-known agency vs. the premium choice, etc.

A request is burning a chip – and you only get so many chips. Be judicious. Ask for things you’re prepared to fight for. Or find another way, and save your chip for next time.

Greg