Many of us on this call work on a business that requires a considerable amount of time prospecting, but who on this call has taken the time to qualify their prospects?
Many business owners make the mistake of failing to qualify their prospects early on in their process, resulting in a considerable loss of time over multiple meetings and phone calls that didn’t have a chance of going anywhere.
By removing unqualified leads early in our process, we are able to allocate that time to focus on business that has a real potential to close.
How do we qualify our prospects? We look at four different criteria. Many may initially feel uncomfortable asking some of these questions early on, but they’re vital to streamlining our process.
Timeline – will we need to close next week or next month? Having a clear understanding of their timeline indicates whether we can deliver or not
Budget – Do we have a budget allocated? Can they actually afford your offer? If we’re out of their budget it would be best to know that upfront
Decision Maker – Are you speaking to the right person or are there other people who need to be a part of the conversation?
Needs – Have I asked all the right questions to help me identify their problems so I can determine the appropriate solution with my service or product?
So the next time you sit down to prospect practice these questions out loud. This way when it comes to a live conversation you’ll present with both confidence and certainty and save yourself plenty of wasted time.
