Seven Reasons Why You Must Zealously Qualify Prospects

By Tessa Stowe

Have you ever worked really hard on a sale - put in a lot of time, money and resources - and they decided to do nothing or they bought from your competitor? When you looked back you could see that if you'd asked a few more questions you could have found out at the beginning that there was a very low probability that you were going to win this sale.

There is a way of finding out at the beginning of a sales campaign what the probability is of winning the sale. You find out by having a sales qualification process in place and by zealously putting each and every prospect and opportunity through this sales qualification process.

Here are seven reasons why you must be zealous about putting your prospects through a qualification process before you sell to them:

1. Qualifying ensures that you only sell to people who are going to buy. By qualifying you can determine if your prospect is going to buy and, more importantly, if they are going to buy now. By qualifying, you avoid wasting time, money and resources on selling to prospects that do nothing.

2. Qualifying tells you where to focus. On which prospects do you spend your valuable time? Qualifying gives you that answer. By qualifying, you identify high probability opportunities and these are the ones you need to focus on.

3. Qualifying enables you to win more sales. As a result of qualifying, you only sell to prospects that are going to buy and you only focus on high probability opportunities. Just by having this focus on high probability opportunities, you increase your probability of success, if that makes sense.

4. Qualifying speeds up your sales and results in a shorter sales cycle. As a result of qualifying, you will find out the reason why your prospect should act now. You find out their 'compelling event.'

When you find out your prospect's compelling event, they will be motivated to take action now. They will be motivated to buy your solution now rather than later and your sales cycle will be reduced as a consequence.

5. Qualifying reduces your wasted costs. If you routinely sell to people who are not going to buy or have a low probability of buying from you, then you are wasting a lot of time money and resources. By qualifying you stop these wasted costs.

6. Qualifying enables you to choose whom you want to become your client. Do you have a client that you wish was not your client? They require so much time and energy that they really are not worth having. Also more importantly they distract you from serving your ideal clients and from winning new business. With qualifying you will identify these non-ideal clients straight way.

7. Qualifying attracts prospects. If you share your qualification process with your prospects, they will see that you are a professional and selective about whom you have as your client. When you become selective about who you work with, people want to be 'selected.' It's human nature.

Your prospects will be trying to sell you on why you should sell to them! Even if you both agree that you are not a good fit for them right now, this process will leave them feeling impressed by you and they'll probably refer others to you.

Right now make it an unbreakable rule that you will zealously qualify prospects and you will only ever sell to qualified prospects that will be ideal customers. So find, learn and implement a sales qualification process straight away and watch the impact on your sales results.

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