Qualifying is all about gathering insights necessary to make a good judgment.
Should you sell to a given prospect? What is the best course of action to close a deal? Is this prospect a good fit for your offer? Is it a viable sales opportunity?
Only after you’ve qualified someone can you really know whether it’s worth to invest your time and effort into trying to sell to this prospect.
However, many inexperienced Melbourne business brokers jump to the pitch too quickly, without having first gained a proper understanding of their prospect.
What Happens When You Don’t Qualify Leads?
You’re essentially throwing darts in the dark, operating like a mindless sales monkey, and it will hurt your performance on several levels. You’ll waste your time and energy chasing the wrong leads, barking up the wrong tree. You become a crocodile salesman—big mouth and no ears.
Wasting Time
If you’re not qualifying your leads properly, you’ll waste a lot of time following up, and attempting to sell to prospects that aren’t a good fit for your company. Spend this time on qualified prospects, and you’ll close substantially more valuable deals.
Missed Opportunities
Some of your best prospects might only become a customer if you invest a certain amount of effort into getting them on board. If you don’t know who those high-value prospects are, you’ll miss out on the chance to sell them.
Closing Bad Deals
Sometimes you might successfully sell to people who shouldn’t buy your company. This isn’t just bad for the customer whom you persuaded into a bad buying decision—selling to the wrong customers is also bad for you and your company.
Not Knowing How to Sell to Them
What are their pain points? What’s the context in which they evaluate your solution? What kind of person are you dealing with? What type of organisation? If you don’t know the answers to these questions, then you can’t customise your pitch for your prospects.
Unable to Close the Deal
What’s their buying process? How long does it take this company or individual to acquire a business? What’s the deal value? Not knowing these things can lead to bad “surprises”. Most surprises you’ll encounter in sales aren’t actually surprises, they’re just a result of a Melbourne business broker not properly qualifying a prospect.