What is a sales qualification?

Sales Qualification: It is the process of sales screening to see if a lead is a good fit for a company’s product or service. First, you need to look at the lead’s profile, which includes things like the business and size of the company. During the qualification process, sales reps ask leads open-ended questions to find out more about their problems and goals so they can decide if the lead is a good fit for a particular product.

A sales qualification method is something that almost every company has. It’s an essential part of the sales process because it helps sales reps focus on the leads most likely to turn into customers. When reps have clear qualification standards, it’s easy for them to narrow down their list of leads and make better use of their time.

Synonyms

• Qualifying sales leads
• Lead qualification

Why qualification is essential in the sales process

The most important part of the sales process might be qualifying the person. Without it, the sales team goes into every meeting with a new lead without any information. This is not only wasteful, but it also doesn’t work. It loses time and leads sales reps to close deals that won’t last because the customers won’t get much out of using the product.

These days, the average salesperson only sells things 28% of the time. They spend most of their day, among other things, updating CRM, recruiting, and choosing which leads to follow up on first.

I’m afraid that’s not right in two ways:

1. It speeds up the sales process.

2. Sellers don’t have as much time to meet their goals.

It’s not like getting qualified gives salespeople more time to sell. But it does help them make the most of the time they have. Reps can focus on deals that are more likely to close—the ones they have a better chance of moving to Closed Won—by determining whether a product is “probably” or “probably not” suitable for a sales lead.

Aside from saving time and effort, qualification helps sales reps find growth-oriented changes, not just quick wins. Companies that want to keep their good name should look for long-term agreements with customers where both parties gain something.

Stages of Sales Qualification

Each business has its own unique sales qualification process. But these five steps are part of each:

Lead or Prospect

A sales lead, also called a prospect, might buy the goods. This does not mean that they are prepared. On the surface, it just means that the customer seems like a good candidate to buy.

In sales, agents look for leads that meet the basic requirements for approving leads while prospecting. Most of the time, this is firmographic data (MRR, numbers, industry), technographic data (what software they already use), or demographic data (location, decision-maker profiles).

It is very efficient to narrow down potential buyers and only use outbound to target specific people. Still, a sales prospect isn’t approved until it makes it through the following steps. A lot of the time, the seller hasn’t even talked to the buyer yet.

Marketing Qualified Lead

These people could be interested in your product or service if they fill out a contact form, visit your website, sign up for your email list, or do something else. Multiple qualified leads (MQLs) can come from different places, like ads or word-of-mouth, but they all need more work.

Just because a lead shows interest doesn’t mean they are ready to buy. They might find interesting things on the business page. They could have also downloaded a price list. These are good signs that someone is more likely to buy, but reading marketing materials is still a one-way discussion.

Ready to Sell Lead (SAL)

The sales team has already looked at the lead’s background and decided they have a good chance of buying. What is an accepted sales lead (SAL)? An MQL that has done everything right—filled out the forms, answered questions, and passed all the checks that happen after they click “Book a Demo.”

Put another way, they’ve shown that they can and will buy your goods. And their position makes it seem like they might be a good fit for it.

In contrast to MQLs, who are only interested in marketing materials, SALs have been expressly qualified by a set of questions or criteria. A company’s website or appointment booking form often does this immediately, and the information is sent back to the sales team. Before making a decision, a team member will sometimes look over their MQLs and send more questions.

It’s not a given that a sales-accepted lead will buy the goods. They can only take part in the sales show.

Lead that is good for sales.

These people have been through a sample and shown that they need your product and can afford it. They are called sales-qualified leads (SQLs). This is when the reps decide whether to follow up with the lead.

By now, the salesperson will have asked many questions to learn more about the company’s problems, goals, budget, decision-makers, timeline, and anything else needed for a proper qualification.

Once they make their first sales call, a SAL usually turns into a SQL. There may be multiple touchpoints, though, like when you need to get buy-in from several decision-makers at different times.

A chance to

A chance is a possible customer that you want to close. At this point, salespeople spend most of their time and energy making the sale seem urgent and pushing the buyer to sign up.

A lead must want to buy shortly to be considered a chance. They are constantly looking for a solution, have had good experiences with past sales reps, and aren’t afraid to say they’re ready to sign up.

Once a sales rep is sure that a lead is a good chance, they can focus on the last steps needed to close the deal. Usually, this means dealing with objections, negotiating prices, and signing the contract.

10 Questions You Should Ask to Find Good Sales Leads

Here are ten questions you can use to find approved leads and make the qualification process easier:

1. What problems are you having that made you look for this kind of help?

2. How does your company measure success? How long do you think it will take to see results?

3. What other people are involved in buying this product?

4. Is there a cash set aside for this purchase?

5. Tell us about what interests you in our service or product.

6. What are some other services or options you’re thinking about?

7. How quickly do you need to decide?

8. Who will use the product, and what do they want to get from it?

9. Do you have any concerns or problems that might hinder us from working together?

10. How should we best get in touch with you?

These questions help sales reps determine if a lead is qualified before setting up a show or asking more questions. Once reps know the correct answers, they can decide to put more effort into chasing that lead or move on to another one.

Frameworks for Sales Qualifications

There are a lot of different ways to qualify sales leads. Which is best for your business depends on many things, like the product, the type of customers you have, and more.

FACT (Time, Fit, Alignment, and Competition)

A different form of BANT is a fact. It works best when the business gives a solution that needs a lot of changes, like for large-scale sales or agency work.

The alignment stage is the most important thing that sets FACT apart from other sales qualification systems. Most ways to interact with a possible customer are one-sided by nature. Fact encourages both parties (the buyer and the seller) to work together.

• Do the prospect’s needs match up with our value proposition?
• Does this project work well with our team and theirs?
• Is there a lot of competition in this market?
• Do we have too many bids for the buyer to choose us?
• Does the schedule work with our tools and skills?

Potential customers must do more than be interested in FACT to be approved prospects. The goal is to find a way for everyone to benefit. In complicated sales, where there are often as many as ten different decision-makers, this is hard to do with a standard, one-sided approach.

Budget, Authority, Need, and Time (BANT)

Another old system in the book is BANT. It works well and is easy to understand, so thousands of businesses base their sales methods on it.

BANT’s primary goal is to ensure sales reps talk to approved leads. Reps can quickly find the prospects most likely to buy by focusing on the four parts of BANT.

• Does the boss already have a budget for this purchase, or will one be given to them?
• Do they have the power to figure out what to buy?
• Do they have an effect on the decision to buy?
• What should they be able to do with your product?
• What time do they need to finish the deal?

‘Need’ is the most crucial thing when BANT is selling. This is what you need to do to sell anything.

While budget and authority are important to deal with first, the buyer’s current situation will finally make or break the sale. This includes why they’re looking, where they are in the sales process, and what kind of customer they are (e.g., industry, business structure). If qualified, reps can use these details to make a personalized offer.

Situation, Problem, Implications, and Need Payoff (SPIN)

This is how you learn how to sell. It’s not so much a structured sales qualification strategy as it is a way to ask the right questions at the right time.

• Situation: Find out about the prospect by asking them why they’re looking, what their current process is, and who else is involved.
• Problematizing: The real problems the customer is having and, for salespeople, making up a unique product and sales pitch in their heads.
• We must consider the short-term and long-term effects of not fixing these problems (implications).
• Need Payoff: Helping the buyer decide that your product is the best way to solve their problem based on that problem and how it solves it.

Spinning sales works well in many situations because it focuses on the customer’s wants and feelings instead of facts. Reps can learn more about their customers, develop more personalized solutions, and get buyers more involved when they ask open-ended questions that keep the talk going.

However, sales reps should also remember to show their skills at the right time during the sales approval process. People are very good at spin selling if they can use pain points to create a unique answer. If the pitch comes too early, it won’t work. So, its success depends on how well the rep can go from studying to showing what they can do.

ANUM (Power, Need, Timeliness, and Budget)

ANUM is a sales qualification system based on the 4Ps: people, product, process, and price. This lets sales reps know the tools they need to close a deal quickly and effectively.

• Authority: Who has the power to make decisions? What number are they?
• Need: What issue needs to be fixed? Is our solution enough to fix it, or do they need more goods or services?
• Need: How quickly do they need it? What might happen after that if they don’t fix it?
• Cost: Can they pay for our solution? Does price play a role in making decisions?

Sales reps can quickly use ANUM to determine if the person they’re talking to can sign a contract. To help them make the most of their time, prospects should only be moved through the sales pipeline if they can choose.

FAINT (Money, Power, Interest, Need, and Timeline)

FAINT is like BANT, but it focuses more on the buyer’s interest and involvement with the seller. It helps you learn how to get prospects interested and move them through the sales cycle.

• Money: Do they have the money they need? Do there have to be limits?
• Authority: Who has the power to make decisions? Does one person make the choice, or do many people have a stake in it?
• Desire: How much do they want the goods or services? Are there things happening right now that might make it impossible for them to work together?
• Need: What issue do they want to address? Is it important?
• Timeline: When do they think the project will be finished, put into action, and users start using it?

FAINT makes the sales approval process more difficult because you must understand what the buyer wants. Also, it keeps sales reps from wasting time on prospects just looking around. Instead, it tells reps to immediately focus on prospects who need their product or service.

Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champions form the MEDDIC.

MEDDIC is the best way to qualify salespeople. It helps sales reps find and qualify possible customers while leading with value. It’s based on account-based selling. Because it needs a lot of study and talking to buyers, it’s much more developed than most frameworks. And because salespeople spend more time on numbers and facts and less on small talk, the buying process is better.

The solution’s business benefits for the customer should be shown as metrics.

• Economic buyer: The person in the company who will make the final “yes” or “no” choice
• Decision criteria: the set of standards that each person making the decision will use to judge the product.
• The decision process: details about how, when, and how the people making the decision will work together to look at all the options and choose one.
• Identify pain: A deep understanding of the areas that cause pain for the customer, such as business, competitive landscape, and limited budget.
• Champions: people inside the company who will help promote your answer (i.e., “sell on your behalf”).

MEDDIC helps sales reps learn everything they need to know about their prospects and build ties with them throughout the sales cycle. It’s different from other sales models because it pushes the seller to be strategic and think about everyone who will evaluate and make decisions, not just those who sign the contract.

C&I GPCTBA

GPCTBA and C&I are sales qualification approaches for businesses. It assumes that the buyer knows some basic things about the product; they need more in-depth information to understand it fully.

• Goals: What does the client want to achieve?
• Plans: What does the client want to do to get there?
• Problems: What problems are they going to face along the way?
• Due date: When do they need a solution?
• Budget: Do they have enough money to pay for everything?
• Power: Who makes decisions, and how many of them are there?
• Dire consequences: What will happen if you don’t buy the product?
• Sound effects: What good things will happen in the long run if I buy this product?

An approved sales prospect for GPCTBA and C&I is someone who knows about the product and can afford to buy it. To use this model well, salespeople must show customers real-world examples of both the good and bad effects, ensuring they fit with the customer’s plans and goals.

CHAMP stands for “Challenges, Authority, Money, and Priorities.”

CHAMP works well for startups and SaaS businesses because it’s easy to use and focuses on what the user wants. It takes sales reps to think about the problems their prospects are having, who can make decisions, how much money is available for a product or service, and which solutions will be most important to them.

• Challenges: What problems do buyers have to solve?
• Authority: Who can give the go-ahead for purchases?
• Money: Does the customer have enough cash to pay for this?
• Setting priorities: Is fixing these problems significant to the prospect?

Most startups don’t have fully developed goods yet, so they care more about whether the customer can afford it and how well it solves their problem. By focusing on those two things and cutting through the rest of the noise, CHAMP helps reps quickly qualify leads.

Tips on How to Make the Sales Qualification Process Better

There are some things that reps can do to improve their skills and get even better at what they do, no matter what training process you use.

• Find out things ahead of time. Research the company first before you start talking to a client. Find out who makes the decisions, how they decide what to buy, what problems they’re having in the business, and anything else necessary.
• Keep the questions open-ended. Use what you’ve learned to develop open-ended questions that will help you learn more about the customer’s wants and needs. This will help you determine if they’re a good sales prospect by giving you more information about how they buy things.
• Pay attention. Always listen more than you speak (this is easy to do when you ask open-ended questions). The prospect should feel like they can talk about their whole case. All you have to do is think of an answer that will work for them.
• Get rid of the pitch. Don’t pitch them if you’re unsure if your client can buy from you or is even interested. It will end the process before it even starts. A possible customer doesn’t have to want to be sold to to buy.

Give the correct answers at the right time. A good seller knows how to move a talk from starting with an introduction to asking questions, showing competence, and getting commitment. A bigger problem needs to be put together, and sales qualification is a piece of it.