This allows you to significantly cut down on the time, effort, and cost of closing each sale. It will also make for a much more efficient and confident sales team.
The lead qualifying process is designed to individually analyze and assign a value that describes the probability of a lead converting to a sale. The typical lead qualifying process involves an entry level agent probing the prospective client for the following specific data as it is relevant to your purchasing criteria.
4 Main Lead Qualifying Variables
Budget Willing to Spend
The financial side is a great place to start. The first variable to gauge is how much the perspective client is willing to spend on a solution aka what you're selling. This is particularly important with B2B sales programs. Consider a service based business that has a low-end price range of 2,000 dollars a month and a perspective client being qualified only generates 4,000 dollars in revenue a month. In this scenario, it's safe to say that business probably isn't in your desired target market. The lead can be dropped and hopefully recycled without moving forward. This "check" has saved your more valuable sales agents time, effort, and moral.
On the flip side if the prospective client spends that kinda budget on "free lunch Fridays" this valuable info can be passed on to a more talented agent ahead of the initial contact once the lead is sent to the sales team. However, before this take place, the qualification interview must be finished.
Authority to Purchase
After the budget is confirmed it's time to see if the prospect even has the authority to make the purchase. The prospect may only be a sort of "gatekeeper" to the superior who has the power to purchase. This too is valuable info that needs to be sent to the sales rep prior to the first sales rep attempt to contact.
Need or Want for Product or Service
Now that we have confirmed the necessary budget and authority exists we need to determine that an adequate need for the product/service exists to convert to a sale. The qualifying rep simply needs to ask discovery questions about the prospects current situation or current solution they utilize in regards to fulfilling the need that your product/service fills. If the solution you're selling provides enough benefit and value over the current methods of your prospect then you have another green light.
Time Frame or Eagerness to Make Purchase Decision
Finally, the qualifier can help set up an ideal transition to the sales rep by inquiring about the eagerness and willingness of the prospect to take action and purchase a new and improved solution.
After all, these qualifying variables have been analyzed and deemed "ready" by the qualifying team the prospect can be sent to the sales team for the close.
You may also find that you are able to divide up the existing sales team and sales pitch process to accommodate different "class" or "grade" of the sales lead. The specifics of this depend on your business and the product/service that your business is selling. But if some sort of division exists it will be extremely profitable if you are able to optimize your sales strategy to accommodate the different variations.
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