Training your salespeople not to waste time while working unqualified accounts or building relationships in the field with the wrong people in qualified companies, is crucial to the long-term success of our sales team and your company as well. By understanding your salespeople’s natural fear of qualifying, you can better coach them to ask these seven critical questions early in the sales cycle. Their productivity will ultimately improve, and you will achieve more sales in far less time. Why Don’t They Qualify? There are two reasons why even veteran sales pros lapse into working unqualified accounts. The first is tactical. Salespeople, who typically employ a highly political style, don’t want to offend a prospect by asking questions about decision-making, spending authority, and budgets too early in the sales process. They want to make friends first. The second and primary reason is psychological. It is part of the typical salesperson’s psychological makeup to want to be liked. And most salespeople are very likable. Unfortunately, it is more comfortable in the short run for the salesperson to build a relationship with the wrong person than to ask questions that may alienate the prospect. Succumbing to Temptation The nature of the sales job reinforces this fear of early qualification. Because salespeople face a lot of rejection, they are vulnerable to the song of praise and positive feedback from their prospects. For the prospect, it can be almost like having a congenial (and free!) employee doing problem analysis and preparing the way for the prospect’s solution. For the salesperson, it provides frequent strokes. And because the relationship is good, it is natural for the salesperson to assume that they will eventually make the sale. Of course, if the prospect is not legitimately qualified, it is only a matter of time before both parties realize that the salesperson’s solution is not a fit. But by then, the salesperson has wasted valuable time that they can’t get back. Even worse, they may have wasted additional helpful resources, such as sales and technical support, throughout this process. Coaching Your Reps to Qualify Sooner and Smarter It is reasonable, therefore, for the sales manager to require and verify that the seven critical qualifying questions are answered early in every sales cycle. By all means, this should be done before your company commits sales support or technical personnel to the sales effort. This is especially important in longer sales cycles or in deals involving more expensive products. A good time to do this is during the forecast and review sessions that most managers schedule regularly. During these meetings, confirm that each salesperson is asking the “W” questions (what, why, when, and who) to qualify both the prospect company and the individuals within that company. What’s the Real Need, and Why Now? 1. What need(s) does the prospect have that your solution can meet? Can your salesperson clearly articulate those needs to the prospect? 2. Why would the prospect be willing to spend x dollars for your product or service? Has it been budgeted? Timing is Everything: When Will They Take Action on the Presented Deal? 3. When does the prospect plan to implement your product or service? For many products and services, implementation, not the close date, is the key because it is the ultimate purpose of the buying decision. It also focuses on the customer’s perceived benefits, not the salesperson’s sales forecast. Who Are The Decision Makers? 4. Who will decide to buy the product or service? 5. Who are the decision influencers who can bring pressure to bear (positive or negative) on the person who will make the final decision? 6. Who has the budget or spending authority to implement the decision? Don’t confuse decision and spending authority. They may not be vested in the same person. 7. Which decision makers have your salespeople called on so far? It should be all of them! Train Reps to Ask What Everyone Else Is Afraid To Given these questions, there are only two skills that your salespeople need to qualify properly. The first is confidence. The second is questioning skills. Good questioning skills can quickly create confidence. Before making a call on a prospect, you want your salesperson to get the answers to as many of these seven critical questions as possible. Resources could include the prospect company’s website or past sales representatives who have contacted the prospect company, among others. The amount of information that can be collected in advance will vary for each prospect. But without fail, once your salesperson is in front of someone in the prospect company, he or she should ask bold, direct questions: “Do you have the authority to implement this decision?” “Has this item been budgeted? Does it need to be? Do you have the funds available?” Your salesperson may not always receive the answers that qualify the lead, but it is better to walk away from a sales cycle that will lead nowhere. How to Reach the Real Buyer Teach your salespeople to persuade the influencer to introduce them to the decision-makers. That retains the relationship with the influencer while opening an opportunity to the decision-maker. If they must, they should bypass the influencer’s authority without permission. This will almost certainly alienate the influencer. But if the sale is going nowhere, your salespeople may have to take that risk. Ask yourself: Can our sales strategy overcome the loss of this influencer? If the answer is yes, it’s a reasonable risk that they should take.
