My Guest Blogger today is Edward Craft, the chief executive of Premise, Inc., a sales consultancy headquartered in Connecticut. He is the author of The Art of War For Salespeople (Definitive Books) and the creator of the 20/20 Selling™ sales process. Contact Ted via www.premisehq.com
After viewing my video blog post on the subject of “Qualifying Opportunities Before the Sales Process Begins” Ted graciously agreed to write a guest post extending the discussion and it’s my pleasure to be able to offer my readers his POV on this very complex subject.
Enjoy and whether you find value or disagree, Ted and I both invite your comments – we’d love to engage in the discussion. JOSEPH
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Ruthless Qualification: The Insight You Need to Make Intentional Pursuit Decisions
Qualification is considered a basic business sales skill. In reality, it is a sophisticated process, one where some of the most important factors are frequently overlooked. All of us who are responsible for developing business have a tendency, unless we control it, to chase every opportunity that is warm and has a pulse. The results can be devastating. In Sales 101 we learn how to qualify. Or so it seems. We are taught to answer three questions: “will they buy, will they buy now, and will they buy from me?” Unfortunately, for a decent-sized deal, you get caught up in all the excitement pretty quickly. It becomes inconceivable that the answer to any of those questions is “no.” You lose the ability to distinguish between temptation and opportunity and find yourself chasing business you have no chance of winning. Or, worse, you end up winning business you will later wish you had lost.
What’s the Hurry? (There needs to be one)
One commonly overlooked qualification factor is whether the prospect senses any real urgency to make a decision. From a sales perspective, the relevant question isn’t whether they intend to make a buying decision, it is whether they believe it is important to make a decision fairly soon, because, if they don’t, there will be significant consequences.
Most of us are pretty good at asking a prospect when they intend to make a decision. We are not as disciplined about asking the critical follow-up question: what will happen if they don’t? Unless you know that a deadline is real, unless you know there are consequences to a no-decision, you run the risk of engaging in a protracted campaign that drains your resources and costs you other opportunities.
In the days of machine politics in Boston, there was a saying: vote early, and vote often. Salespeople should apply the same principle to qualifying the sense of urgency. Get a handle on it early, and calibrate it with a number of people. You have a limited amount of time and resources to devote to sales campaigns. Invest wisely.
Can This Marriage Last?
A second overlooked factor is whether there is a fundamental compatibility between you and the prospective customer. Would a reasonable person, knowing both of you, conclude that this could be a positive, productive relationship? Or would that person find that the two of you see the world so differently it would never work out? If so, strongly consider walking away. There is no valor or glory in winning at all costs. There is nothing admirable about the conventional sales wisdom that says you should get the order and worry about the details later.
If you cannot bring yourself to give it a miss, go in with your eyes wide open, and head off problems you foresee before they declare themselves. Bear in mind that you will never have – nor should you want – 100 percent market share. There is always a segment of the population you simply cannot and should not do business with. Trying to is an exercise in futility.
What Are the Rules? (The real ones, that is)
The third commonly overlooked qualification factor involves the informal decision criteria. The question is whether you understand them, and whether they will help or hinder you. These are the unwritten rules, the considerations that are never expressed in a tangible form. They involve things that are not technically supposed to be part of a decision-making process. Things like personal preferences, predispositions, biases for or against certain suppliers, the comfort level one feels with some people but not others, and so on.
Although these rules are unwritten, they are not unspoken, as long as you are wise enough to ask the right people the right questions at the right time. You have to get in the habit of carving out a few minutes in each interaction to ask prospects how decisions really get made in their organization. If the decision were a toss-up, what would be the tiebreaker? People like to talk about themselves and what they do. Give them a chance. Shave a few minutes off your pitch. Use the time to ask the prospect to educate you.
Matching up well with the formal decision criteria – price, features, capabilities – gets you into the theater. Connecting with the informal ones gets you a choice seat. You will never know all of them. But the sooner you start learning, and the more you continue to learn, the better will be your chances.
Not Just If, but How
The bottom-line problem with the traditional qualification approach isn’t just that it is superficial, but that it’s a one-off. It’s all about deciding whether to sell. But it is far more valuable when it tells you how to sell. That means it must be an ongoing part of a sales campaign. You’ve got to continuously look at factors that inform you about how you are doing, and that point you to the critical people and issues you must address. In other words, a good qualification process helps you win.
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