Value your time and only want to talk to qualified prospects?
Whether you’re a one-person operation, have a very busy small team or you have been inundated with lots of leads, then this article is for you.
The ability to only spend time with qualified leads is something that came up recently for one of our clients.
They have the issue that they have heaps of leads at a particular time of the year and not a lot of time to handle all the enquiries.
They sell a high ticket item and currently, all sales are originated from a sales call, therefore they struggle with having the time for conversations with all prospects.
Because of the industry that they operate in, leads come in peaks and troughs throughout the year, so it’s not an option to put on another sales team member.
If we break it down however, whether you have heaps of leads or just want to do a better job at only talking to qualified leads, we need to consider two key elements of the sales process and what you can do about each.
Education > Qualification Education
Firstly, for someone making a purchasing decision, we need to educate the prospect.
It could be educating them on their problems, possible solutions and how you work for example.
This can take many forms – fact sheets, case studies, how to’s and the list goes on and on.
In addition to these standard options that I’m sure you’re aware of, what I’ve seen work really well is outlining to prospects who this product/service is actually for and who this is not for.
For example, this is for busy business owners who just wants X taken care of.
Another example could be this is not for people who are brand new users of Y.
This can really help target your exact customer before you’ve even picked up the phone. Of course it may mean people de-select themselves from the sales process, but that’s probably fine in most cases anyway.
Another education component can be putting together your Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
FAQs allows you to answer regular questions that prospects are concerned about or aren’t clear on to help them make a decision.
[Side note, if you haven’t got this list sorted, for your next 20 sales call, take note of the questions that they are asking and use this to pull together your FAQs]
If you’re lacking time and have lots of prospects and need to educate, look at leveraged ways to deliver this information.
This could take the form of an education/nurture email sequences over a period of time (depending on the length of your sales process).
Another suggestion is running a webinar.
This would allow you to reach and engage with many prospects whilst saving a heap of time having one on one sales conversations with potentially unqualified leads.
Qualifying The Prospect
Another key component of a sales process is qualifying the prospect.
What ways can you qualify them?
One method that I’ve seen used effectively is asking leads to fill out an assessment or application form.
This serves multiple purposes.
Firstly, it helps you ask specific questions that you can review to determine if they would be a good match or not, before making time to speak with them.
Also, it demonstrates how committed someone is. Your cold prospects probably couldn’t be bothered completely an assessment/application anyway.
I get that this isn’t a complete list of everything that you can do to leverage your time and talk with only qualified prospects.
However, hopefully this gets your creative juices flowing with more ideas!
Your time is precious, so make the most of it!
(NOTE: Tired of working so hard? Use these 3 must know small business hacks to generate more leads, qualify prospects and easily boost your productivity. Learn more now!)
