Qualifying

Instead of memorizing multiple techniques, think of sales as the pursuit of 3 objectives.

1. The prospect feels understood
2. The prospect understands your solution
3. The prospect makes a decision.

When I sell, I use these three objectives to select which skills to switch to in order to move the sale along.

The skills I’m referring to are primarily:

• The ability to ask clarifying questions
• The ability to clarify understanding
• The ability to listen with the intent to understand.
• The ability to help others make decisions.

Understanding the 3 Sales objectives.

Objective 1: The Prospect feels understood. 

This is often termed qualifying the prospect. Here it is easy to make the mistake of going through a list of questions without really meeting the objective.

Developing your qualifying process is important. Your qualifying process will provide the questions that must be answered in order to determine if you should continue pursuing a prospect. But if your eye (and more importantly, your ears) are not focused on achieving objective 1, you may complete ‘Qualifying your prospect, and moving on, while leaving your prospect behind and tuned out.

It’s not important that you understand the prospect. It is important that they feel you understand them. The difference is critical!

When in doubt, ask questions. Don’t just move on.

Objective 2: The prospect understands your solution.

As you present your solution, show the prospect how your solution addresses their needs and wants you that you identified while achieving objective 1. This is referred to as selling benefits, and not selling features.

If you’re doing this, the prospect will be engaged in understanding your solutions. If they are not engaged, make sure they feel understood again, or ask confirming questions to determine if they see and understand how your solution solves their problem. Don’t assume they understand.

When in doubt, ask questions!

Don’t just move on.

 Objective 3:  The prospect makes a decision.

A decision is either Yes, or No to your solution. 

Anything else is either them saying no, and not wanting to hurt you, or an indication that they do not have enough authority or information to make a decision.

Get comfortable with ‘Its not what I’m looking for’. 

There are ways to move a prospect from that position to actually buying and that requires getting better and better at achieving the first 2 objectives. But if you are subconsciously avoiding getting a no, you draw out the sales process to still ultimately getting a much more expensive no, because of the additional time invested in avoiding the decision, and still pursuing the prospect.