The Qualifying Process – A post by Lotfi Saibi

In short, the decision a sales representative has to make is based on a set of preexisting criteria,
whether or not your products and services are right for the prospect; and equally
important, whether or not your prospect can benefit from this relationship.

Deciding this is a reciprocal relationship, may be one of the toughest and hardest decisions you will ever have to make as a sales person (some other time we will discuss ethics and integrity
of a sale). It is also the one that will define you as a sales person. I warn you here, that if
you are selling some sort of consultative service, make sure you realize that the benefits
to your potential customer are well defined over time, and that real expectations are set
prior to consummating the deal. What you do not want to happen is for your prospect
realizing that his/her needs were not considered during the qualifying process.
How successful you are in qualifying prospects depends on how much pre-qualifying leg
work you are willing to do. In a nutshell, get to know everything about your prospect and
his business. I have divided successful qualifying into 3 steps:

Step 1:

Some sample questions I have found useful. You may add or omit some of them
depending on what you might already know and on the type of business it is:
What prompted you/ your company to look into this?
What are your expectations/ requirements for this product/ service?
What process did you go through to determine your needs?
How do you see this happening?
What is it that you’d like to see accomplished?
With whom have you had success in the past?
With whom have you had difficulties in the past?
Can you help me understand that a little better?
What does that mean?
How does that process work now?
What challenges does that process create?
What challenges has that created in the past?
What are the best things about that process?
What other items should we discuss?

Step 2:

At this point, you should be comfortable drilling down to the more technical, and vertical
specific questions. Make sure you discuss timelines, budgets, expectations, etc…If you
had prepared carefully during the prior phase, there should not be too many qualifying
questions, and they should be to the point.
Here is a sample of what I have found to be effective, and to the point. Again, use your
discretion to decide whether or not some these apply to your type of business:
What is your timeline for implementing/ purchasing this type of service/ product?
What other data points should we know before moving forward?
What budget has been established for this?
What are your thoughts?
Who else is involved in this decision?
What could make this no longer a priority?
What’s changed since we last talked?
What concerns do you have?
OK. You are not there yet. The next part is to analyze the answers. Personally, I assign
numeric values to each answer, say 1 through 5. 1 being least favorable match and 5
being most favorable match. You can now add them up. The next step is completely
subjective analysis: determining whether or not there is a fit. I assume this is how dating
sites matches potential dates. What you have done here is build a profile. Next, ask
your self, do my products and services best match the needs of this prospect. If you
decide to continue with the sale process, the next part of the is no less important.

Step 3:

This is where you must establish rapport, trust, and credibility. Please notice that in this
line of questions, you are specifically addressing the individual and his/her concerns. This
shows empathy and caring, not apathy or indifference.
How did you get involved in…?
What kind of challenges are personally you facing?
What’s the most important priority to you with this? Why?
What other issues are important to you?
What would you like to see improved?
How do you measure that?

By Lotfi Saibi

Another guest blogger joins the team: Lotfi Saibi

Lotfi Saibi has authored many white papers and articles in the areas of sales, customer service, operations, and business development. All writings had been positively accepted and some now serve as training materials for some sales organizations. Some of the more recent writings have covered sales techniques, prospecting, cold calling, gaining trust, and relationship building. On the sales management side, Mr. Saibi’s work focused on planning, training, coaching, individual and key account management, and transactional sales strategy versus consultative sales strategy. A more recent study by Mr. Saibi on the subject of strategic account management had served as a hand-out in one of his Harvard University Sales Management classes.

Mr. Saibi’s vast management experience as a business owner, a consultant, and sales manager, coupled with his love to teach and mentor, has made him a very well respected sales coach among his peers, customers, and competitors.

Mr. Saibi’s management style only got better when he began coaching soccer over fifteen years ago-a career that ranged from youth soccer, to college, and eventually to the U. S. Soccer Olympic development Program. It was only natural that his passion to teach and mentor extended to his professional life in the areas of customer service, employee training, enterprise software sales training, asset management and mobile wireless inspection software, and financial services.

We look forward to his posts on the stages of the sale that will compliment the training series I am working on.