{"id":329,"date":"2022-02-02T18:07:42","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T23:07:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/?post_type=chapter&p=329"},"modified":"2022-04-25T13:46:02","modified_gmt":"2022-04-25T17:46:02","slug":"7-5-qualifying-your-prospects","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/chapter\/7-5-qualifying-your-prospects\/","title":{"raw":"7.5. Qualifying Your Prospects","rendered":"7.5. Qualifying Your Prospects"},"content":{"raw":"After you have identified your prospects, it\u2019s important to understand that\u00a0all customers are not created equal<\/em>. Some customers are willing to form business partnerships and grow with you over time while others are just looking to do business with whoever offers the lowest price. Some prospects may never be able \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0to help you or your company achieve your business goals, or their goals may not be strategically aligned with yours, even if you really like doing business with them. Choosing customers carefully will save you time and energy and help you meet you goals. You don\u2019t want to spend several hours writing up a proposal for one of your prospects only to find out they were never genuinely interested (Cherry, 2006).\r\n\r\nThink back to the sales funnel and the idea that you start out with a large pool of leads and end with a much smaller number of customers. While it is important to cast your nets broadly when you\u2019re rounding up leads, you\u2019ll work most effectively if you weed out the likely from the unlikely early on. You can qualify your leads to determine whether they are legitimate prospects by discovering whether they have the\u00a0willingness<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0ability\u00a0<\/em>to make a purchase. Consider these four questions to help you meet your qualifying objectives:\r\n
    \r\n \t
  • Does\u00a0he\u00a0or\u00a0she have the resources to purchase the product or service?<\/em> (M<\/strong>oney)\u00a0<\/strong>Sometimes knowing the answer to this question involves contacting the lead and asking some questions. Other times, you can figure this out by doing company research before ever getting in touch with the lead. You wouldn\u2019t have tried to make a major sale to Circuit City just before they went out of business because they wouldn\u2019t have had the resources to buy.<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Does\u00a0he\u00a0or\u00a0she have the authority to make the buying decision?<\/em> (A<\/strong>uthority) <\/strong>You can try to sell candy to a five-year-old, and they will probably want to buy it, but unless you can convince their parents to make the purchase you don\u2019t have a sale. Similarly, your lead at a company may love your product and tell you it\u2019s exactly what their company needs but if they are not the person with the power to buy, they are not a qualified prospect. This doesn\u2019t mean you should write the company off, but you\u2019ll have to figure out how to get in touch with the person who can\u00a0<\/em>make the buying decision.<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Does\u00a0<\/em>your prospect have a need?<\/em> (N<\/strong>eed)<\/strong>This is the most basic thing to figure out about your prospect. There is no use pursuing another individual in the company or delivering a persuasive presentation if there is nothing you can do for this person or organization. If you sell new cars, and your lead is satisfied with the car they bought three months ago, you don\u2019t have anything to offer them.<\/li>\r\n \t
  • Do\u00a0you have access to the influencer or decision makers? <\/em>(A<\/strong>ccess)\u00a0<\/strong>This is relatively straightforward in B2C sales, but in B2B, it can be hard. If you wanted to sell your clothing line to Macy\u2019s, you couldn\u2019t go downtown to your local branch and pitch your product. Large organizations have layers of personnel, and it\u2019s challenging to ferret out the people whose can influence the buying decision. Think about whether you\u00a0can\u00a0<\/em>reasonably access these individuals.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nThis qualifying technique is called MANA (money, authority, need and access).\r\n

    Managing Your Prospect Base<\/h2>\r\nSo you\u2019ve qualified your prospect and you have their information in your CRM system. It would be nice if that were all it took. But your CRM is only a way of tracking and organizing customer information; making an action plan, a specific plan of approach, for each customer is up to you and you won\u2019t make any sales if you don\u2019t act. After qualifying, you might have some prospects with a clear need, buying authority, and a fairly high level of interest, while others seem uncertain. If you classify your prospects as \u201chot,\u201d \u201cwarm,\u201d and \u201ccold,\u201d you can prioritize by devoting the most initial energy to your top potential customers (Brown, 2009). \u00a0No two customers are alike. This means that even though you\u2019ve qualified prospects A and B and determined that they\u00a0do\u00a0<\/em>have needs you think you can meet, those needs will be different, possibly drastically so. It\u2019s a \u00a0\u00a0good idea to begin your action plan by conducting a careful needs analysis\u2014that is, what specific problems is this prospect facing and how can my product help solve those problems?","rendered":"

    After you have identified your prospects, it\u2019s important to understand that\u00a0all customers are not created equal<\/em>. Some customers are willing to form business partnerships and grow with you over time while others are just looking to do business with whoever offers the lowest price. Some prospects may never be able \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0to help you or your company achieve your business goals, or their goals may not be strategically aligned with yours, even if you really like doing business with them. Choosing customers carefully will save you time and energy and help you meet you goals. You don\u2019t want to spend several hours writing up a proposal for one of your prospects only to find out they were never genuinely interested (Cherry, 2006).<\/p>\n

    Think back to the sales funnel and the idea that you start out with a large pool of leads and end with a much smaller number of customers. While it is important to cast your nets broadly when you\u2019re rounding up leads, you\u2019ll work most effectively if you weed out the likely from the unlikely early on. You can qualify your leads to determine whether they are legitimate prospects by discovering whether they have the\u00a0willingness<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0ability\u00a0<\/em>to make a purchase. Consider these four questions to help you meet your qualifying objectives:<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Does\u00a0he\u00a0or\u00a0she have the resources to purchase the product or service?<\/em> (M<\/strong>oney)\u00a0<\/strong>Sometimes knowing the answer to this question involves contacting the lead and asking some questions. Other times, you can figure this out by doing company research before ever getting in touch with the lead. You wouldn\u2019t have tried to make a major sale to Circuit City just before they went out of business because they wouldn\u2019t have had the resources to buy.<\/li>\n
    • Does\u00a0he\u00a0or\u00a0she have the authority to make the buying decision?<\/em> (A<\/strong>uthority) <\/strong>You can try to sell candy to a five-year-old, and they will probably want to buy it, but unless you can convince their parents to make the purchase you don\u2019t have a sale. Similarly, your lead at a company may love your product and tell you it\u2019s exactly what their company needs but if they are not the person with the power to buy, they are not a qualified prospect. This doesn\u2019t mean you should write the company off, but you\u2019ll have to figure out how to get in touch with the person who can\u00a0<\/em>make the buying decision.<\/li>\n
    • Does\u00a0<\/em>your prospect have a need?<\/em> (N<\/strong>eed)<\/strong>This is the most basic thing to figure out about your prospect. There is no use pursuing another individual in the company or delivering a persuasive presentation if there is nothing you can do for this person or organization. If you sell new cars, and your lead is satisfied with the car they bought three months ago, you don\u2019t have anything to offer them.<\/li>\n
    • Do\u00a0you have access to the influencer or decision makers? <\/em>(A<\/strong>ccess)\u00a0<\/strong>This is relatively straightforward in B2C sales, but in B2B, it can be hard. If you wanted to sell your clothing line to Macy\u2019s, you couldn\u2019t go downtown to your local branch and pitch your product. Large organizations have layers of personnel, and it\u2019s challenging to ferret out the people whose can influence the buying decision. Think about whether you\u00a0can\u00a0<\/em>reasonably access these individuals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      This qualifying technique is called MANA (money, authority, need and access).<\/p>\n

      Managing Your Prospect Base<\/h2>\n

      So you\u2019ve qualified your prospect and you have their information in your CRM system. It would be nice if that were all it took. But your CRM is only a way of tracking and organizing customer information; making an action plan, a specific plan of approach, for each customer is up to you and you won\u2019t make any sales if you don\u2019t act. After qualifying, you might have some prospects with a clear need, buying authority, and a fairly high level of interest, while others seem uncertain. If you classify your prospects as \u201chot,\u201d \u201cwarm,\u201d and \u201ccold,\u201d you can prioritize by devoting the most initial energy to your top potential customers (Brown, 2009). \u00a0No two customers are alike. This means that even though you\u2019ve qualified prospects A and B and determined that they\u00a0do\u00a0<\/em>have needs you think you can meet, those needs will be different, possibly drastically so. It\u2019s a \u00a0\u00a0good idea to begin your action plan by conducting a careful needs analysis\u2014that is, what specific problems is this prospect facing and how can my product help solve those problems?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":284,"menu_order":5,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[49],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-329","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":182,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/284"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":537,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/329\/revisions\/537"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/182"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/329\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/thepowerofselling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}