In an upcoming webinar on lead qualification, I’ll discuss the factors that play a big role in lead qualification, and what you can do to qualify your sales leads. For instance, lead qualification and buyer personas can go hand in hand. What value do buyer personas bring to your sales efforts? Understanding the buyer persona is something that has become a lost art with more of the prospecting process being done via the Internet and the pushing out of data. It’s for this very reason I’m a huge believer in not having canned email responses to inquiries. When we have the personal interaction regardless of the medium it takes, it can provide us with a window into the buyer’s persona.
Here are more insights and tips for qualifying sales leads.
1. Understand The Science
While emotion plays a large role in the B2B buying process, lead qualification should be based on science and not emotion. What metrics should a salesperson prioritize? The prospect is looking to buy to deal with:
- A pain
- A gain
- Prevention
- Optimization
When we understand which of these items above is the focus, we can begin to understand the importance of the decision.
2. Tap Into Social Media
Engagement on social media during the buying process is a proven strategy. How important is the salesperson during the education phase? The role of the salesperson is much more than most realize when it comes to social
media. Too many companies and salespeople believe it’s all about pushing content, but in doing so, they forget the first word: Social. Social means real people engaging with real people.
A quote I like to use when it comes to social media:
Make it personal and you will make it profitable.
3. Data Accuracy
How do you constantly fold new data on ideal customers back into the system? How do you profile in or rule out prospects during the pre-qualification phase? The worst thing we can do is to rule out a prospect completely. Data helps to identify the high potential prospects. The most valuable asset any salesperson has is their own time, which means they will be more effective when they are spending maximum time with minimum prospects. Minimum prospects are most likely to buy now. Data accuracy will give you those insights.
Bonus: Questions To Qualify Prospects
When you are qualifying prospects, ask yourself these four questions:
- What is their timeline for making a decision?
- What is their value of money?
- What are 2 critical issues I can assist them with?
- Am I dealing with the decision maker?
When we have the answers to these questions, we increase our ability to close the prospect significantly.
Join me on a webinar on August 26th with Pipeliner and RingLead to discuss even more on sales qualification.
Read more: Sales Qualification Tip to Eliminate Losses