Qualifying Checklist – Sales Reminder#2
Filed under: sales process | Tags: buying, buying decision, prospect, prospecting, qualification, qualifying, qualifying checklist, qualifying questions, sales, sales pipeline, sales reminder, sales strategy |
Why Spend Time Qualifying?
Qualifying sales opportunities is fundamental. Qualifying is a process sales uses to help determine whether to pursue a lead or opportunity. Qualifying helps sales to decide whether internal resources should be committed and effort spent to respond to a potential sales opportunity. If a prospect is not prepared and interested in acting to fulfill their requirements, I urge you not to mount a huge sales effort unless there is a strategic reason to do so.
Remember to ask at every stage of the sales process:
- Have I really identified their business issue of pain?
- Will they act to solve their issue and buy?
- Will they purchase within the time frame discussed?
- Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product?
- Am I just a educational tool for this buyer?
Answering these questions will help to determine next steps in the sales effort. Remember, qualifying is a continuous process and begins with pre-qualification of leads. Qualifying should be systematic and embedded in your CRM solution. As you qualify a prospect you will gain answers to the three important questions: Will they act to solve their issue and buy? Will they purchase within the time frames discussed? Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product or service?
Most prospects will provide a requirements document or schedule time to discuss the specifics of their requirements. It’s up to sales to thoroughly discover their needs. It’s imperative to learn the prospect’s sincerity to buy. Effective probing will help to thoroughly understand a prospect’s needs, while at the same time, help you to answer,”Do I understand their business pain?” and “Will they act to solve their issue and buy?” If a prospect has a clear set of requirements, or gains clarity as a result of consultative probing, they are more likely to act and buy.
During the discovery phase of the selling process, it is important to prioritize a prospect’s needs to determine what is important to resolve immediately. For instance, a prospect planning a viral social media marketing program, might have the goal of attracting hundreds of video entries and thousands of new users, creating couponing opportunities, drive regional consumer traffic to showrooms, conduct user research… Most often, for prospects to be interested in buying your solution, their highest priority must be met by your solution. This also helps to answer the questions, “Will they act to solve their issue and buy?”, and, “Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product?”
If a request for proposal is developed by the prospect and you decide to respond, prioritize your response to show how their top priority requirements will be met first. Be clear when explaining how their needs will be met. By doing this you encourage the prospect to answer the question, “Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product?”
The key to qualifying are probing consultative questions. As answers are given to qualifying questions, sales will be guided to develop on target responses and formulate sales and account winning strategies. These answers will also help with sales pipeline forecasting.
Qualifying Checklist
Creating a Qualifying Checklist assists in keeping qualifying on track. If you’re selling a technical product, often times your professional services organization will want to have input to your Qualifying Checklist. Answers collected will help them prepare for implementation if the sale is successful. View the Qualifying Checklist as your guide, your compass for navigating a prospect’s requirements.
Here are some broad Qualifying Checklist categories that might fit your organization:
Will they act to solve their issue and buy?
- Do I and my internal teams have a clear understanding of the prospect’s requirements?
- Do I understand the true business “pain” the prospect is facing?
- Do I have the attention of their management team and decision maker? Is the management team and decision maker aware of their needs and my solution?
- Has the prospect stated how they will make the buying decision?
- Is a solution to their requirement vital to their business, or, is it a “nice to have” feature?
- Is a consultant involved in the decision? If so, am I communicating with the consultant?
- Are all members of the evaluation team identified and communicating with me?
- Has the prospect said they will buy? Have they said when they will buy from me?
- Have users, technical teams, and other management teams, all agreed to buy your solution?
- If I’m an early stage company, are there special buying considerations that need to be proposed and accepted by all to increase buyer confidence?
- Have they stated there is a budget to buy or will they find the budget to buy?
- Does the prospect have experience implementing a solution like mine?
- Will they require additional special industry benefits analysis or a unique ROI summary?
Will they purchase within the time frames discussed?
- When would the prospect like to see the solution implemented?
- Has the prospect completed and signed contracts and agreements in time to hit the deployment date?
- Are our project teams coordinated? Has a schedule for deployment, and project roles and responsibilities been detailed?
- Is there a critical business reason for them to act now?
- Are they facing strong competitive pressures?
- Are regulatory issues driving their decision?
- Does the prospect have a sense of urgency to act?
- Has their evaluation team justified the project?
- If you require assets from the prospects, such as schematics, authorizations, or creative, have the transfers and formats been planned and accepted by the prospect?
- Has there been a change of key personnel since you started the qualification process? (A big red flag!)
Will they satisfy their requirement by buying my product?
- Do the prospect’s requirements match my product?
- Is what I have to offer competitive in the marketplace?
- Is what I offer disruptive to historical ways of doing business?
- Has the prospect stated a preference for my solution?
- Is the evaluation team leaning towards my solution?
- Do my competitors offer any advantage over my solution?
- Is the evaluation team convinced of your ability to deliver?
You will have qualifiers specific to what you are selling, but I hope this is a good Sales Reminder. I’m convinced, thorough qualification will shorten sales cycles and allow sales to create new accounts and revenue much faster!
Next edition: Sales Strategy – Sales Reminder#3
I enjoyed reading your views on qualifying sales. In this economy, each and every sale is important, especially since clients often go for the cheapest option. And since we offer services (not products) we really do have to work hard to identify which sales opportunities are worth our time and money. Thank you-I will return often to learn more.
Dorian,
Thank you for your comments! You are absolutely correct, selling services is often a conceptual sell. There can be a long period of educating a prospect. Often you will have much time and energy invested before you know if the prospect is interested in purchasing from you. I’ve sold services in my career. Mentally I thought of my services as products to be sold. My goal was to get to the decision maker and present my approach. If this was not possible, I moved on.
This site rocks!
Excellent site, keep up the good work
Cool site, love the info.
Great site…keep up the good work.
[...] After initial rapport building conversation and aligning with your customer or prospect, ask questions (Qualify) and determine if there is a genuine sales opportunity. Remember, you want to know if your solution will satisfy their requirements: will they purchase from me, will they purchase within and expected time frame? For more details on Qualifying, please see “Qualifying Checklist – Sales Reminder#2” (http://leonardscales.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/qualifying-checklist-sales-reminder2/). [...]
LOL, Are you severe?
Hello,
Thank you for commenting. You are correct, I’m a little severe!:)
Best,
Leonard