How Do You Qualify a Prospect?
Question:
“I always hear this and feel I don’t know how to truly implement it. Can you give me some examples of how you are always qualifying? Like specific questions you ask or info you dig for? I’ve heard it so many times, but it’s generally not specific enough advice for me to really change anything?”
I flip this around and teach salespeople to “dis-qualify” prospects.
Some say it’s semantics or splitting hairs, but there is a difference.
It boils down to mindset.
Unless I have some stellar campaign that is just flooding my phone and inbox with prospects begging to buy from me, I know that most of the people I’m talking to today are not ready, willing, and able to cut a check the moment I speak to them.
CAVEAT: I’m assuming this is B2B sales vs. a “one-call-close” B2C pitch.
That being said, I expect the prospect to withhold information, to play hard to get, to show up with his defenses up.
With that background and understanding, I start off with small commitments.
My initial meetings are just 15 minutes with a 15-minute buffer, which allows me to go 30 minutes if it’s a qualified prospect.
But this already puts the prospect more at ease.
Nobody wants to waste an hour on a pitch from a pushy salesperson, but anyone can stand on their head for 15 minutes for a quick “chat.”
Hopefully, there are some qualifying/disqualifying questions asked when the prospect books a call.
If not, you have to get into disqualifying mode quickly.
For example, along with my sales training, I sell several CRMs/marketing automation tools for small businesses.
The prospect shows up on the call and will say,
Yeah…can you show me this CRM?”
A typical salesperson proceeds to go into a breathless 59-minute demo of everything the CRM does, and the prospect concludes with,
Wow. This has been very insightful. You really know your stuff. We’ll be in touch.
And you never hear from them again.
When I get that question, I narrow it down:
Sure. What would you like to see first? Is your biggest need around building and tracking pipeline stages? Is it in reporting? Is it in sales and marketing automation? If it’s in automation, are you more concerned with pre-sales or post-sales sequencing?”
While they don’t want to reveal too much up front, they also don’t want to waste their own time, and if they have a true need that I touched on with those questions, they’ll say that’s where they want to focus.
But I don’t immediately get into presentation mode.
I dig a little deeper.
Okay. Pre-sale automation and sequences. How are you doing things now, or how would you like to do things? What’s lacking in your current tools?”
They may get a little irritated (most don’t, but some do) and reply with,
Can’t we just see the software?”
To which I reply,
Of course, you can, but here’s the issue: this is a big, powerful tool, yet despite all of its features and powers, it may lack some key things you need. If you can just give me a few ideas of what you need it to do, I can either tell you it doesn’t so we can wrap up this call and get onto other business, or I can focus there, show you how it works, so you can decide if it meets your needs. Does that make sense?”
If they are truly in need of what I sell, it makes sense, they calm down, open up, and we have a good call.
So set shorter calls to both put the prospect at ease and put a sense of urgency in them.
Learn to ask a few more questions at the start of each call to disqualify the prospect.
Go into each call unconcerned about the outcome.
Go into each call with the goal of simply finding the truth, i.e., do they have a need that you can address, and do they want to address that need soon and at a reasonable price?
Market like you mean it.
Now go sell something.
