Asking insightful questions, blows away the fog. Putting you in a position to know if the prospect or opportunity is a good fit and one you can win!
Part 1 = what do you NEED to know?
The first step to well qualifying a prospect or opportunity is to truly understand what you need to know to determine:
1. if they are a good fit for your organization?
2. are you are the best fit for their current requirement?
Those are two very different questions when you begin to define and qualify contacts, accounts, and deals!
Part 2 = what will you ask to find out?
Perhaps the biggest qualifying mistake I hear when listening to sales calls is when salespeople ask for information they want in a non-customer facing way.
example: “when will I get the PO?”
instead of: “when do you need everything delivered?”… “ok – to deliver by _____, we would need to have your order in process no later than _____; how do we make that happen?”
Part 3 = Know… what you don’t know.
Perhaps the most important piece of the qualifying puzzle is being very clear on:
1. what you KNOW (the prospect/customer actually TOLD you)
2. what you EXTRAPOLATE (educated guesses based on what you KNOW and your experience with this particular account, added to by your expertise).
3. what you’re GUESSING to be true.