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When I began my sales career my sales manager used to beat on me about the importance of qualifying prospects. After a few months on the job I realized that his emphasis was well placed. What a time waster it can be spending your valuable time and energy with unqualified prospects. I observed that this was a huge differentiator between the top sales producers and those with lesser success.

The way we qualify prospects is by getting information. The primary way we get this kind of information is by asking pertinent questions. Most new salespeople tiptoe when it comes to asking questions to quickly qualify a prospect. A prospect once told me that he understood that I was there to sell him something and our meeting wasn’t purely a social call. He actually encouraged me to ask him qualifying questions so we could get down to business. Our customers and prospects can teach us so much about sales.

I’ve been doing business recently with a Fortune 500 company that knows how to qualify a prospect. The salesperson had obviously been well coached and did a great job. I wasn’t the least bit offended by his questions and it saved both of us a lot of time. Here is how he covered his bases.

Decision Maker = “Would you be the signatory on the contract?”
Legal = “What is the legal approval process on contracts at your company?”
Budget = “What are your current costs for this service and what is your budget?”
Product Fit = “From what I’ve described so far, do you feel our service will meet or exceed your requirements?”
Competition = “Who is providing your service now and what other vendors are you considering?”
Time frame = “On what date do you want to have a contract signed?”

He had these questions written down on a legal pad in preparation for the call. Fantastic! I knew, and he knew, that we weren’t meeting, at least initially, just to socialize. We were meeting to see if we should join into a partnership and he wasn’t going to waste a lot of his time, or mine, in determining if marriage was a possibility. Once he qualified me he started to work on our business relationship and the details of our transaction. I appreciated his professionalism and respect for my time.

When prospecting, quickly qualify by boldly asking the questions you need to ask. Your prospects understand you have contacted them to sell them something and they don’t want to invest their time in you unless they feel they could benefit (WIIFM). And you certainly don’t want to invest your time if you don’t think the relationship will yield sales. Both you and the prospect are qualifying one another. Get to the point.

Tags: qualifying

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