7 Reasons Why You Must Zealously Qualify Prospects

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.

Tessa Stowe teaches small business owners and recovering
salespeople 10 simple steps to turn conversations into clients
without being sales-y or pushy. Sign-up for her FREE monthly
newsletter that is full of tips on how to sell your services by
just being yourself at http://www.salesconversation.com

December 1st, 2008