HOW TO PUT EFFECTIVE PROGRAMS IN PLACE TO QUALIFY PROSPECTIVE CUSTOMERS (PART 1)
Most marketing managers are convinced that they can understand their market without doing research, and that they know what prospective customers are thinking about their products without asking them. Some of them have maintained this delusion through their professional career. But most eventually realize they are locked in a separate reality, and that they must develop a client-centered approach to selling to help them qualify prospective customers’ needs and concerns, move business forward, and move their sales objectives.
Step 1: Adopt a Client-Centered Selling Methodology
Companies that achieve total market domination understand the value of a client-centered selling methodology which makes it easier for their sales team to communicate effectively and help their customers move through their purchase process. Client-centered selling is based on an intuitive, five-step selling process that begins with prospecting for new customers, using direct and indirect prospecting techniques. After a prospect is identified, its need, budget, buying authority, and time-frame for making a purchase decision must be qualified. If a prospect is qualified, your company can present its marketing story to help your customer move its purchase process forward. It is important to verify that your prospective customer understands how and why your product is appropriate for its needs, and that it does not have any unanswered concerns, before you ask for its business.
It is important to verify that your prospective customer understands your communication at each step of the selling process, that your customer understands your proposed solution, and that your customer does not have outstanding concerns that will postpone its purchase decision.
If you ask your customer for its business before you ask all of its purchase concerns, it may feel that you are more interested in making a sale than in helping it solve its problems. But if you make an honest effort to address your customer’s purchase concerns, and you verify that that you have supplied the information that your customer needs to make an informed purchase decision, your customer should be prepared for you to ask for its business.
| Client-Centered Selling Process | Objectives |
| Prospecting (Initial Contact) |
|
| Qualification |
|
| Presentation |
|
| Verification |
|
| Ask for business |
|
Step 2: Evaluate your sales team’s qualification process
After you identify potential customers for your products, you will need to qualify their need for your products and their level of interest in moving toward a purchase decision. The earlier in the selling process that you qualify your customers, the less time you will waste with unqualified prospects, and the more time you will be able to spend helping well-qualified prospects move through their purchase process. The most direct way to qualify your customers’ interest is to ask them for basic questions:
- Do you need our products?
- Do you have money budgeted to purchase our product?
- Do you have the authority to purchase our product?
- When (time) do you plan on making a buying decision?
Although at first it seems easy enough to get straightforward answers to these questions, it is often very difficult to do so. For example, your prospective customer may suspect that they need your company’s products, but they may not feel that they are informed enough to make a purchase decision, or they may be unsure about whether their personnel will be able to use them. In fact, most prospective customers cannot answer these simple questions until they begin to move through their purchase process.
Take responsibility for establishing your customers’ need, money, authority, and time.
If you look around your office, you can see many items that are essential to run your business, such as your letterhead and your telephone. And you can identify many other items, such as fancy desk accessories, that were discretionary purchases. It is important to understand that at some point, you were convinced that you needed these items. In this sense, need is subjective, and salespeople can influence their customers’ perception of need for their products.
Most companies create budgets to help them control their expenses. And the amount of each expense is based, to some extent, on the value that the company expects to gain from its expenditure. If a salesperson can demonstrate that their product provides a greater value than a company believed it would provide when it created its budget, the company may be willing to budget some money for nits purchase.
Purchase authority to many salespeople means “decision-maker.” But in many selling situations, many individuals influence a purchase decision. And in some selling situations, a salesperson may never meet the decision-maker behind his or customer’s purchase process. In these selling situations, the salesperson must work with customer contact who acts as gatekeepers and influencers to win the sale. Nonetheless, in every selling situation, it is important to identify the decision-makers needs and concerns, so that the appropriate elements of the company’s marketing story can be communicated and can influence his or her purchase decision.
Customers purchase products when they believe that the advantages of making a purchase decision outweigh the risks of delaying a purchase decision. If the selling process is not moving forward, it is usually because of the salesperson has not helped his or her customer the value of his or her product. The greater the value a customer believes a product has the more urgency it will feel to make a purchase decision.
| Typical Customer Objections | Possible reason for objection |
| We need to think about it. | I am not convinced your solution will work for us. |
| We need to discuss it. | I don’t have enough information to make a buying decision. |
| We like our current supplier. | I don’t see the advantage of doing business with you. |
| Your product is too expensive. | I am not convinced your product is worth the price. |
| We don’t need it no. | You have not made me want your product. |
| You need to discuss this with someone else (Purchasing, engineering, etc.) | You have not captured my interest. |
| We want to see other products. | I am not convinced this is the best solution. |
| My boss wouldn’t authorize it. | I don’t want to sell this for you. |
| I don’t see how it could work. | I am afraid of change. |
Qualification Questionnaire
Qualifying your company’s prospects with a qualification questionnaire or contact form will help your sales people save time, and will help them remember to ask all of the questions that they need to ask to qualify their customers’ need, money, authority, and time, and to update their sales contact data base. You can use the “Customer Qualification” form to help you design a form for your own business.
| Sample Customer Qualification Form |
| Contact Information
Company: Contact: Address: Telephone: Qualification Questions Do you have an outside sales force? How many salespeople do you have in the field? Do you have inside sales representatives? How many inside salespeople do you have in each office? Do you have access to high-speed digital internet connection? Do ou have any sales support representatives? Do you use or plan to implement videoconferencing? DO you support real video? Do you use or plan to m implement an Internet server? Qualification Priority No interest – no need/ no money. Referred to: No interest – competitive system installed/ satisfaction level: Low interest – call back in _ months/ send information: Interested – invite to seminar on: Very interested – schedule meeting on: |
Part 2 continues in the next article
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