Step 5: Qualify Your Leads
After the last exercise, you should have a long list of people in your network. They should fall into these categories: past clients, current clients, superfans, professional contacts, social contacts, and target buyers. We’re going to take the list you made and turn it into your sales action plan.
It’s getting real.
That list of names is just the beginning. You now have a good idea of who might be a good prospect for your offer, so let’s talk about how to qualify your prospects and increase your chances of winning a sale.
Effective sales is about what you can do for other people. To be an effective seller, you need to gather enough information to make sure your solution is what they need or to tailor your offering in a way that adds the most value.
If that sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. We have a system.
The 6 Lead Qualifiers
Qualifying a prospect is a key component of any sales methodology. If you don’t properly qualify a lead, you don’t know with certainty whether they are ready for the sale. The result: You can end up selling too soon or offering something that your prospect does not need.
Either way, it leads to icky sales feelings, and we are definitely trying to avoid those.
There are many ways to qualify a lead. Prequal uses the following six qualifiers:
Needs and Wants: What are they struggling with? What are they focused on achieving? What challenges exist?
Offering: Do you have a credible solution that will alleviate their pain or create a positive outcome?
Budget: Do they have a budget to invest? Is this priority critical enough to allocate funds?
Timing: How quickly does their priority need to be addressed? What’s the capacity to implement a solution right now for both the buyer and seller?
Decision Makers: Who ultimately has authority to make the purchasing decision? What does the decision-making process look like for your solution?
Value: How will your solution add value for the individual or business? What are the positive impacts if accomplished? What are the negative consequences if nothing happens? What expectations need to be met?
All of these lead qualifiers must be addressed and aligned to close a sale. It’s how you ensure you will be an effective partner with a valuable offering.
These lead qualifiers become a visual pipeline of sorts and demonstrate how close you are to a pitch/presentation opportunity. When you have met all six qualifiers, you have earned the right to ask for business or a chance to pitch your services or product. And if you haven’t, you have your roadmap to get you there.
Your task in this exercise is to identify at least one prospect in your network and qualify them using our six lead qualifiers. The goal is to be very realistic about the information you know, the information you need to gather, and how close you are to pitch for a new opportunity.
DOWNLOAD THE LEAD QUALIFIER WORKSHEET.
Fill out the worksheet to determine how qualified your lead is or leads are. You can run anyone through this checklist.
When you have, don’t forget to share in the group. Let us know which qualifiers you fell short on so we can help you brainstorm getting your lead fully qualified.
