Just How Hot Is That Prospect?, by Shawn Greene

When you do close business with a new customer, it is because these elements are in place:

• You have a buyer with budget and/or authority to make the purchase.
  
• There is a need and a desire to meet that need.
  
• The timing is right.
  
• The prospect is reasonable.
  

Analyzing each prospect with respect to the status of each of these elements is called "qualifying." When you qualify prospects, you ensure that you cover key elements of a successful sale. You also provide yourself with the means to identify where each prospect is within your sales pipeline.

Buyer

The "buyer" has the authority to write the check, or has control over the budget which would be used to purchase your services or products. (This person is often called the "decision maker.")

Budget, and authority to make purchases, are often two different things. However, one or the other must be present to close a sale. For example:

You are selling a presentation skills class to the human resources department, and you discover they do not have budget to purchase your services. However, they express a strong interest in the class.

Your next step would be to find out who has the authority to essentially create budget (e.g. the CEO). If you can bring him or her into the sales process, this prospect is getting hotter.

Because buyer issues are really about money, many salespeople fail to qualify their prospects in this area. It`s a sticky point to discuss, yet is perhaps the one point that helps most in qualifying prospects. The best way to approach the issue of money is to use ranges, and "if" descriptions. Questions that help qualify buyer (and money) issues include:

• "Do you have budget set aside for this project?"
  
• "Giving me a range, please describe what you would expect to pay for this product?"
  
• "Describe the usual process for completing purchases like this."
  
• "If you were interested in our products, who else in XYZ Corp. might we need to bring into the discussion?"
  

When you discover that you`re not speaking with the buyer, engage your contact`s assistance in bringing the buyer into your sales process. Leave this until the very last portion of your conversation. Instead of closing for the business, close for next steps, engaging your contact in creating a plan to allow you to talk with everyone involved in the decision-making process.

Need and Desire

Most sellers look for needs. However, a prospect`s recognition that such a need exists does not equal a sale. A hot prospect not only sees need, they place a priority on meeting that need. The higher the priority, the hotter they are as a prospect.

Questions that both qualify-and possibly heighten-a prospect`s desire to meet a need, include:

• "Describe how (problem) affects your business?"
  
• "Tell me how resolving this issue would benefit you?"
  
• "On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the importance of meeting this need?"
  

Timing

There are innumerable timing situations that affect the sales process. When the timing is right, the prospect can be very hot. When the timing is off, the prospect is almost always very cool. In most cases, timing is out of the salesperson`s control. Therefore, you must know what timing issues exist so you can manage the prospect accordingly.

When the prospect indicates the timing is bad, find out why and follow up at an appropriate time. For now, this prospect is a cool one.

Questions that help surface timing issues include:

• "What`s your timeframe for meeting this need?"
  
• "When you would want to move forward on this?"
  
• "Would you mind if I followed up? When should I do that?"
  

Reasonable

Though you can`t ask direct questions to measure reasonableness, you will certainly get a sense of it as the call progresses. Just as you must qualify each prospect, you must also let go when you have an unreasonable prospect to avoid wasting your time. It is not your job to overcome every challenge that comes your way. Your job is to work with every opportunity that comes your way.

When the gap between what you have to offer and what the prospect wants is too wide, you don`t have a challenge, you have Not A Prospect (NAP). For example:

• Someone who says they want to do business, but insists on paying far less is NAP.
  
• Someone is who not the buyer, but won`t help you reach the buyer is NAP.
  
• Someone who does not want to meet a need is definitely NAP.
  

When the Prospect is Cold

When you discover that you`re talking with a cold prospect, wrap up the sales conversation with a summary of the points for which you do have a good fit. Close by asking the prospect to agree to an appropriate follow-up, and place the prospect on a back burner so it may simmer to readiness. You should also explore the possibility that you should approach someone else in the organization.

Make sure you do indeed follow up as agreed, because even a very cool prospect can heat up at any time.

Planning Your Call

The order in which the qualifying elements are presented here is not the order in which you should explore issues with prospects. In general, you should uncover needs and level of desire to meet those needs first; uncover timing issues next; and surface buyer issues near the end of your call.

Qualifying a Pipeline

There are many ways to define and manage a sales pipeline. A good start is to simply assign a number from 1 through 5 to each prospect-one number for each element. The more elements in place, the higher the number and the hotter the prospect. When you combine this with the funnel model of marketing and sales, you have a visual system for managing a pipeline.

Summary

A qualified prospect is a situation in which you have a reasonable buyer with need and desire to meet that need, and the timing is right.
• The more of these elements in place, the hotter your prospect.

• Qualifying should take place with every contact with prospects, be it in an informal setting such as networking, or a formal sales call.

• Your job is to recognize and leverage opportunities. Let go of NAPs.

For help with orchestrating the sales call, ask for "Get Them Talking." For information about the marketing and sales funnel, ask for "Modeling Success."

For more information about Savage & Greene`s services for improving sales performance, contact Speakers Platform.

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