Member Article

Qualify your prospects professionally

Qualify your prospects professionally

We all get it wrong sometimes and I did two weeks ago. A potential customer contacted us after looking to train their sales team so that they could improve their performance and increase their sales figures. It was a great opportunity, they called us after being referred by one of our happy customers, there was no other competitor involved and I got lazy!

I turned what should have been a relatively easy sale into a lost sale. I should have spent time qualifying the opportunity by finding out what they wanted could I help them and are they prepared to buy off me.

The truth was that I didn’t qualify the opportunity professionally. I assumed what they wanted and didn’t find out the compelling reason why they should buy and why they should buy off me. So I lost the sale due to my unprofessionalism. So I give myself a kick up the arse and give myself a sales lesson on qualification which I would like to share with you today.

You will never be a successful salesperson unless you qualify every opportunity properly and professionally. The result of not qualifying properly and professionally is that you will lose opportunities and in many cases waste time with the wrong opportunities. You (and me) need to only spend our time on opportunities that have been qualified by making sure we have the answers to the following questions.

• Are we talking to the decision maker?
• If it we are not talking to the decision maker arrange to see him or her
• What is the decision date for the opportunity?
• Do they have a realistic budget for the services/products/project?
• What are the key criteria that the decision maker will be base his/her/their decision on?
• Is there anyone else against you? If so how many are they and who are the competitors?
• What are your chances of winning?
• Are they committed to going ahead with the order/business/project?
• Will they be prepared to buy off you?

Once you know the answers to these questions and you have positive answers then and only then do you have an opportunity worth spending your time on. You still have some work to do to win the business however at least now you know it is a real opportunity that is worth spending time on.

If I had spent a little bit of time two weeks ago getting answers to the questions above I would have seen at the first meeting that they didn’t have a budget and weren’t committed to doing something about it. I would have qualified out early and saved myself at least four hours of my time – four hours I could have spent with better opportunities. So not only is today’s sales tip a lesson for you it is also a lesson for me!

Improving your sales skills is a never ending business as I have proved however it is not only about learning skills it is about putting them into practice. You can learn new sales skills and we are here to help you by offering three options to gain new knowledge so that you can put them into practice.

Option One - Take a look at our book of the week by clicking here

Option Two - Our Free 7 Ways to Increase Performance, Profits and Sales next session is on Friday 10th August for more information click here

Offer Three - ‘10 Sales and Marketing Activities that are free to implement’ mini sales course delivered direct to your inbox. (Starts Monday 6thAugust) To register click here

If I can help you with any of your current sales issues please contact me to see if I can help you. Call me on 0191-2267366 or email me at michael@arrowsales.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Michael McMeekin .