To be successful, your overall strategy for success needs to be in a constant state of turning new business connections into viable opportunities for sales. Naturally, and understandably, this can prove to be easier said than done.

The Challenges Of Qualifying Leads

Your sales force has three challenges, when it comes to new business opportunities:

• Get qualifying information from a potential client, in order to determine whether or not they are indeed an ideal customer.
• Create a relationship in which the client feels comfortable in making an eventual purchase.
• Not scare off the customer by asking too much in the way of information, without giving them a compelling incentive to do so.

Which methods are available to help you to achieve all three of these goals simultaneously? Thankfully, you have a number of proven strategies.

How To Qualify Your Sales Leads

Here are a few strategies to help you better communicate and sell to potential leads:

• Utilize a lead-scoring model: What is lead scoring? Simply put, this is the concept of using information to fill in the blanks on a customer. This information can include how they engaged with your website, the information they have already filled in of their own accord, and much more. A good lead scoring model is going to make it easy for you to skip a plethora of questions that could potentially waste everyone’s time.
• Do your homework: This suggestion almost goes without saying. However, let’s define this concept more carefully. From gathering insights by going to a potential customer’s LinkedIn profile, to using their website to gather even more information, a member of your sales team can come to that first serious interaction with a solid idea of who they’re talking to, and how to relate to them in a mutually beneficial way.
• Utilize BANT: This concept refers to budget, authority, need, and time-frame. These are the four questions you should aspire to answer and understand, well before you ever make direct contact with the client in question.
• Learn how to SPIN: Another acronym? Absolutely. We’re talking about four different types of questions here to keep in mind during the qualifying process. Ask about the SITUATION of your client, the PROBLEMs they may be experiencing (which you can help with), the IMPLICATIONs of those problems for this client, and the NEEDs they would like to currently meet. That spells the enormously beneficial tool known as SPIN.
• Creating deep data profiles: Recording answers during the qualifying process is naturally something you can benefit from in a variety of ways. Some CRM software options make this easier to achieve than ever before. Data profiles allow you to create information that you can use for consultation purposes. It can also be something you can easily pass along to another member of your time. They won’t be running the risk of making any mistakes. They’re going to have all the information they could ever need. What will you find in a good data profile? Addresses, contact information, previous conversations, and information you have gained through most of the tips we’ve already outlined.

Building The Best Possible Qualifying Process

There is also something to be said for having good software in your corner. This is the kind of software that should be able to not only help you gather this information, but also show you how to best organize and actionize it.

Do you want to build the best possible data profiles, as we outlined earlier? Software can go a long way towards giving you everything you need to cut through the static, and find the clients your business truly deserves.