Qualifying Leads means Disqualifying some.

Recently I have been speaking with my contractors and other business owners in my industry on the need to qualify customers.  Now qualifying a customer is as important as trying to close them and I can’t emphasize this for any industry for 2 reasons.  First, your time spent as a professional.  If you are spending time with unqualified customers, you are asking wasting your time and energy.  Secondly and more importantly – you will have the upper hand on any sales situation once you have truly qualified a client. 

Customers want to be qualified.  They want to be checked out and sized up.  Any truly big ‘whale’ client will respond well to qualifying questions mainly because they can empathize with someone that is time restricted and needs to make sure that they are not wasting anyone’s time.

For example, in my industry, I often ask how people have experienced lead companies.  If a customer tells me they have had horrible experiences with every lead company they have worked with I tell them straight up that I wouldn’t want to work with them for fear of not performing to a level of their satisfaction and thus potentially affecting my company’s reputation.  If a client tells me they have never bought leads before then I take on a defensive role and explain the potential failure of a first time marketing and make sure they are OK with losing before allowing them to purchase data.

Sometimes clients will purchase data with minimum issues as to accuracy and expect it to work within a wide range of results.  These, for me, are qualified beyond measure and reinforce the fact that over time, I tend to make 99% of my money from these types of clients verses the teeth pulling kinds of clients. 

Every industry has these types of clients and the best thing is to turn them over to your competitors.  This will give you more time to focus on qualified clients and give you confidence to say NO instead of just hearing it from those that you might wish to sell.  Being picky about your customer is not about whether you like them or not – it comes down to how easy it is going to be to develop a long term, profitable relationship with this person.

Over time pricing will have to come down as loyalty sets in.  So make sure you do not price clients down too much too early or you will lose long term business and clients will leave you for a cheaper price when you could have come down more by holding firm earlier.

Not all Qualified leads are the same – and some are barely qualified.  However, you can be sure that from a raw lead point of view and from a cold calling point of view, 1/3 of all leads are not qualified for a number of reasons including:

1.  Budget issues

2.  Timing of request (information only)

3.  Shoppers

4.  Trust

5.  Unreasonable requests

… and many more.

Qualifying a lead means asking questions, engaging, and controlling the flow of the conversation so that the buyer feels as though he or she is there for a purpose. 

Qualifying a lead can be creative – it can just be a tone of voice or nature of topic of conversation or line of questioning.  The thing to know is that once you qualify or disqualify a prospect, what is the next step?

A qualified customer should be treated like a potential job interview – you are there at that point to try to service the client’s needs.  This means running reports, calling whoever the client wants you to call, emailing, presenting, etc…  Realize that qualified customers are just 1 step away from a closed deal. 

A disqualified prospect should not be treated with disrespect.  Rather, a disqualified customer should be redirected or let go with dignity and with tact.  If you are uncomfortable with a client, simply tell them you’re not sure if there would be a good fit.  If a client is requesting a product or service you can’t do or provide, simply let them know it’s not in your range of services.  It’s OK to be direct and forthright if a disqualified prospect persist and becomes an annoyance.

Bottom line is that qualifying leads involves tough questions, quick decisions, and follow-through.  By focusing on the qualified leads and quickly dismissing the disqualified leads, you will make more money with less effort and with more focus on the prospects and clients that matter.