5 Ways For Qualifying Prospects

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When you're in the field, meeting people after people, how can you identify which of these people are really worth your time? This is known as qualifying prospects.

A lead is a potential buyer. A prospect is a lead that is qualified or determined to be ready, willing and able to buy. For qualifying prospects you need to ask him questions to determine if he has the desire and ability. One of the biggest and common mistakes salespeople make is to right away present the product to the prospect without even trying to understand what the prospect wants. You need to sit back and do some probing to make sure you are talking to right person. Prospects will want to talk if they are asked the right questions. 5 ways for qualifying prospects are as follows

#1 Does your prospect have a need?
Is your customer actually having the need for your product or service? If he doesn't, no matter how great your pitch/sales presentation is, he will not say a yes.

#2 Does he/she have the authority to make the buying decision?
Are you talking to the right guy? The lead might be very cooperative with you and may agree to you in all terms but he may not be the ultimate authority to make the decision of buying. In professional selling, the lower management will be more approachable but we need to gradually move to upper levels as they will possess more authority for decision making.

#3 Does he/she have the resources to purchase the product or service?
Even if he/she has the authority does he have sufficient resources to make the purchase? Does your product come within his budget? And more importantly do you know his budget?

#4 Does he/she have the willingness to purchase the product?
He has the need, he has the authority, he has the resources but he is not willing to buy from you. Free will is something which even God doesn't mess around with. And salespeople are expected to do that too. 

#5 Do you have access to the influencers or decision makers?
Some times the person who has the authority for decision making may not be the actual decision maker. So when you encounter issues like willingness of the buyer, the relationship you have with the influencer can save the day. 





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