On the Firstborder site we have three eBooks for free download: Business Imperative Analysis; Qualification Analysis and the Buying Process. The Qualification Analysis has nearly twice as many downloads as the other two which looks like most people view Qualification as important – and it is – although I will have to say the Business Imperative has helped our customers secure millions of extra revenue.

Qualification has always been important, but never more so in this present economic climate. No time to waste dilly dallying with customers who won’t be buying or won’t be buying from you. Therefore, over the last few weeks we have upgraded our Qualification Analysis and it seems to add more value. There are four stages –

1.    Making Sure the Opportunity is Real.
2.    Making Sure the Customer Will be Buying.
3.    Making Sure We Win.
4.    Making Sure We Close.

Behind each stage are the detailed questions. However, there is one question that I always ask first when I’m doing a deal review with a sales rep. To me it’s important, but not as important as the second question, however the second question has no relevance if the first question is not asked!

The first question to ask is “when is the deal closing… when will they be giving you the purchase order… when will they be signing the contract?” If you get a “I don’t know” then you are in real trouble, but most times you do get an answer… and if you get a date then here comes the second and most important question… “Does the customer agree with you?” When you ask the sales rep this watch them like a hawk, you are looking for congruent affirmation that the customer does agree. If the customer agrees to a close date then they have made a commitment and commitments help confirm if the opportunity is real or otherwise. If the customer can’t confirm then something is wrong. They might not have the power, the opportunity may not be real, they may want the competition to win, whatever it is something is wrong. Get the customer to confirm when the deal is likely to close and if they can’t or won’t then at least you know where you stand and you can then start working on what needs to happen in order for them to confirm the date.

If you do get a date, then that’s great, but it’s still not enough. Now you need to test their commitment to the date and for this we need question number three! Ask them… “How long can they delay the decision?” You don’t want an answer to this. You want them to say they can’t and then give the reasons why they can’t. If they tell you how long the decision can be delayed then guess what is likely to happen… the deal will be delayed… the commitment is not there. In such cases the imperative is missing and at this point our Business Imperative Analysis starts coming in to its own!

We will be running some short webinars on our new qualification and other tools during May onwards. If you would like details then add a comment to this post and I’ll make sure details are sent to you.

Happy qualifying!

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It’s often claimed to be the biggest competitor that everyone faces in sales… do nothing. Selling against a real competitor is often seen as easier than competing against the ‘do nothing’ decision. If ‘do nothing’ wins it means that the deal was not real or the need not there or, and more appropriately, there was no business imperative.

In theory no one in sales should lose to ‘do nothing’ because if the qualification and management of the opportunity was being conducted properly then you would see that the biggest competitor was ‘do nothing’ and you could qualify out early and save your resources for use on those deals that will be closing… however, we do not live in the ideal world and so even the best will lose at some point to ‘do nothing’. The question is how to bring the customer back on track to do something.

One of the biggest reasons for the ‘do nothing’ decision is cost… the customer has a need, but did not budget enough to adequately address the need. One way to bring the customer back on track is to make the business imperative so compelling that they have to do something. I have put up earlier posts about the business imperative and you can also download an eBook from this site to help you through the process… however the point of this post is to highlight that there is always a cost to the customer of doing nothing.

In my business the cost to a potential customer of not investing in improving their sales effectiveness is high. It costs money to find a sales lead. It costs money to qualify them. It costs money to pursue them. It costs money to close them. If the qualification is wrong then the wrong deals could be pursued (wrong because they will not close) at the cost of those that could have been closed. If good leads are found, but poor salesman are given them, then too many of them will be lost to the competition… it costs money to find the lead and that money has been wasted. However, the cost of not winning a closable opportunity is not the cost of finding the lead and it’s not the cost of pursuing it, but the lost opportunity cost… the lost profit on a deal that should have been won. Giving leads to poor closers costs much more than one might think.

Avoid getting to the ‘no decision’ by bringing to the attention of your prospect the real cost of doing nothing and you will be surprised at how much it helps to solidify their business imperative!

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As I have mentioned before… from time to time I answer questions that are posted up on the Q&A section of LinkedIn. I recently responded to a question by Flyn Penoyer the Inside sales Guru. His question was around qualifying deals as part of the critical aspect of selling.

He asked…

1. What is your definition of qualifying?

2. What or who should be qualified?

3. When, in the sales process, should the above qualifications take place?

4. Finally, give the readers your best tip or two on qualifying?

I answered…

1. What is your definition of qualifying?

Qualifying has four primary purposes…

a) To uncover what you don’t know about the deal – for example, budgets, people, pain, opportunity, etc, etc, as determined by your qualification criteria.

b) To help determine if the deal is real, if you can win it and if you are going to win it.

c) To help determine your sales activities – for example, to put plans in place to find out what you don’t know.

d) To determine the level of risk you are carrying on the deal – for example, are you prepared to continue with the deal if you can’t get to the decision maker – it’s a risk to continue putting your resources into the deal when you can’t influence the main person… are you prepared to take the risk?

2. What or who should be qualified?

I’ll start with the who… we define four major roles Stopper, Leader, Insider and Persuader. If you take the first letter from each role you get SLIP… which is what will happen to your deal if you don’t qualify properly!

Most people go after the decision makers, we qualify the Stoppers. A Stopper can stop the deal from happening and some of them can also make the deal happen. Decision makers are generally high up the organisation and few of them, whereas, Stoppers can be all over the organisation, at any level and also outside the organisation. For example, if you are selling IT, then some expert in the computer room could stop the deal from happening by saying your technology does not fit, but they couldn’t make it happen. An outside consultant could stop a deal, but couldn’t make it happen.

The Leader is you day to day contact.

The Insider is your coach… without a coach your qualification may well be suspect.

Persuaders are the informal and formal influencers.

What should be qualified?… not enough room here to cover it all, but the three main criteria we use I’ve already mentioned in 1b above. I will be covering the full list of qualification criteria in a later post, or you could download an early copy of the Qualification Analysis, which is a good start, but I will be updating it in the coming weeks.

3. When, in the sales process, should the above qualifications take place?

Always be qualifying… always. It’s never finished until you have the order. You will never know a 100% what is happening on the customer’s side. Relax and you may be caught out. However, there is a sequence to qualification and it links to the buying process. The primary sequence is as mentioned in 1b. The detailed sequence is in the eBook you can download for free from our site.

4. Finally, give the readers your best tip or two on qualifying?

For me there is one great qualification question to ask the customer… “When will the deal close?”… ask that question however you wish, but ask it. If the customer can’t or won’t commit to a timescale then you know immediately that something is wrong… you may not know what is wrong, but something is. The deal may not be real, they may not have the authority, you may not be in the running… whatever is wrong, you are not getting commitment from them and without commitment you may not be in the running for a deal.

If you get your date, great, work backwards and start working out other commitment dates and you now have something to help move the customer forward and timescales for when they have to make further commitments.

When is the deal going to close?… such a simple question to gain so much from the answer!

The reason for this post is that it is a good introduction to the qualification analysis that I will be posting under the ‘how to recession proof your business’ series.

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