You're Qualifying Your Deals All Wrong

There are so many misconceptions about qualifying your opportunities. I get that if you chase every potential lead, you’re wasting a lot of time. You need to protect your time and reserve it for the most valuable activities, but the way you make sales is by having sales conversations. You're probably talking yourself out of a lot of those opportunities.

The more time you can speak to potential customers, the better you will be in tune with your marketplace. That expertise will absolutely translate into more sales. 

Here’s where I think most reps go wrong.

They let their ego get too involved.

I think the process of qualifying becomes adversarial too quickly. How proud is the seller who scoffs at less-than-perfect opportunities? I often see reps boasting about how many of these meetings they refuse to take. 

I also see “I’m not going to chase every lead” as plausible deniability for a lot of salespeople who still aren’t making their numbers. It’s one thing if you’re crushing your revenue goals, and you can be really picky. It’s quite another thing to cherry-pick the perfect deals and still fall short of quota.

Any order taker can help someone who wants to spend money and already has their wallet open. If that’s all you can do for your company, why do they need you?

Good selling takes skill, talent, and perseverance. The best sellers can take potential opportunities and turn them into something: a sale, a referral, a learning opportunity, or something else that will help them. That's literally why they’re paid the big bucks.

How many potential opportunities are you leaving on the table because you only speak with people who are qualified to buy right now? Can you take a cool lead and turn it into a paying customer, or are you just another order taker?

They miss the point altogether.

I think most salespeople grossly overestimate the time they spend selling. It’s rare that a seller consistently has five productive meetings every week with new potential customers. 

Are you saying you’re too busy, even though you spend less than an hour a day actively communicating with an interested party?

If prospects are raising their hands because they think you can help them, I think you owe them the due diligence of discovery. Give a little credit to the marketing department here, too. If you're getting these leads, they’re clearly doing something right. 

Not every meeting will turn into a quality opportunity, but at the very least, you’ll learn something about the market that will help you in a future sales call, and you’ll have expanded your professional network. Conversations with context always pay off in the long run. Have as many of them as you can.

Didn’t you call them on purpose?

Here’s the thing I don’t get… Aren’t you doing some level of qualifying before you even make the call? Don’t you have a role in deciding who you reach out to? 

If you’re trying to reach people who you can ideally help, then the only thing to really qualify out is timing. I don’t care if they can buy now. There's never a bad time to prove that you’re someone worth talking to and that you have something worth talking about. You have a number to make next quarter too. 

Let’s get this straight- there’s a direct correlation between the number of sales calls you have and the number of sales you make. That includes the ones you have with prospects that fall out of your pipeline. No step is too small if it’s headed in the right direction. No sales call is bad if you can learn something that will help you in the future.  

Approach every opportunity with an open mind. Unless you're blowing your number out of the water and really need to be selective, you can probably stand to have more sales conversations, even if those prospects don't turn into paying customers.