Do This Right Before You Start Qualifying
Before you start to qualify …
Get on the “same team” with your prospect.
If you skip this important step, your qualifying can feel like an interrogation for the prospect.
If you start asking one-sided questions, one after another, without a clear explanation for why you’re asking them, the prospect might be less willing to share important information, especially because they’re probably assuming that you’re just asking these questions to help yourself with making the sale.
This is the exact part of the prospect’s mindset that we want to change before we begin to qualify.
We want the prospect to know that we are asking these questions to help them, not just for our own selfish purposes.
Here’s language that you can use to preface your qualifying:
“Before we jump into the demo, I have a few questions to make sure I’m showing you the parts of our product that are specific to your needs. Is that alright?”
This makes it clear that our qualifying questions will be used to help the prospect, not just for making the sale (even though they will definitely be helpful for making the sale—read more about this here).
Think of it like going to the doctor.
Most people go to the doctor after they’ve realized there is something wrong with their health, and they can’t fix it themselves.
So they go to the doctor’s office and, naturally, the doctor starts to ask questions.
Usually these questions are about very personal matters, but even then, the patient is happy to share this information.
Why? Because they trust that the doctor can help them.
It’s the same with qualifying—if the prospect trusts the salesperson to help them, the prospect is more likely to openly and honestly answer qualifying questions.
This also brings up a good point about the difference between qualifying for inbound versus outbound leads …
Inbound vs. outbound qualifying.
Inbound qualifying is more like the doctor analogy—the prospect has reached out to you.
They know they have a pain point and they have already demonstrated interest in your product or service, so they should be more tolerant of your qualifying questions.
For outbound, on the other hand, your prospect will have less patience. You’ve reached out to them, usually out of the blue.
Therefore, you need to show a little value before you begin to qualify outbound prospects.
It doesn’t need to be your whole pitch. You just need to show enough value to make it worth your prospect’s time to answer five minutes worth of questions.
For example, let’s say that you’re selling a recruiting service.
Here’s how you could show a small piece of value:
Salesperson:
“I noticed on the Careers page on your website that you’re hiring for a Senior Software Engineer. How has the hiring been going for that role?”
Prospect:
“Not great. We’ve only gotten three applications.”
Salesperson:
“If you had a way to get more applications for that role, would that be helpful for you?”
We recommend using this question-answer style when showing value, especially at the very beginning of the call. This way, it doesn’t feel like you’re just vomiting your elevator pitch without making it conversational with the prospect.
Qualifying is all about the art of asking questions.
Now that you’ve gotten onto the “same team” with your prospect and, in the case of outbound, shown a little value to keep your prospect interested, it’s time to start qualifying.
Click here to read more about the art of asking questions.