- You know, the idea of sales qualification
is, in many ways, a relatively new phenomenon in sales.
The traditional sales people
would go out and do basically no qualification.
They would identify anyone who seemed to have a pulse,
and they would immediately go straight into pitch,
they would go straight into trying to sell that person,
to persuade them, to convince them.
And then, a bunch of years ago, people came along and said,
you know, maybe that's not the best approach.
Maybe what we should actually do is take a step back
and understand if the person that we're talking to
is actually qualified for what it is
that we're trying to sell.
And what they started to realize,
by observing some of the same traits of people like doctors
or white collar professionals like attorneys and CPAs,
really truly professional people who are busy,
they started to realize that qualifying prospects
not only led to understanding if someone's actually a fit,
but it also established them as much more of an expert,
as much more of someone who
they are attracted to doing business with.
And so, what we see now are really
two very distinct worlds of sales,
where you have on the one hand,
you have the sales people who are just showing up
and throwing up all over their prospects.
They are pitching, they're coming in,
and they're just opening up their jacket pocket and saying,
"Hey, look at all the stuff that we've got.
"Here are the features and benefits.
"I wanna show you all of it."
And then on the other hand, you have a lot of sales people
who, as soon as they get a prospect on the phone they say,
"Hey, I wanna understand, what's keeping you up at night?
Or, "What's your biggest challenges
"that you're facing right now?"
Or, "What do you care most about?"
Or, "I wanna pick your brain
"to understand what's going on in your world."
All very low value ways of opening a conversation.
And so, on the one hand you have this one world of people
who are just out pitching, being super old school,
and on the other hand you have a lot of people
who are maybe a little more sophisticated,
but are still coming in a way that's pretty low value.
And so, what we want to do
is we want to meld the two worlds,
where we're really coming in with value,
where the prospect is saying,
yes, I want to have a conversation with this person
and I want them to understand what's going on in my world,
so I want them to ask me questions,
but I also wanna feel like they're definitely the person
that I want to be asking me questions.
So again, think of it like a doctor.
How do we establish ourselves as truly that doctor?
So in this video, I'm going to show you
the five keys to create massive value
during sales qualification.
Check it out.
Number one.
We want to first, we want to establish authority.
So we need to first and foremost
let the prospect know that we are someone
that they should be having a conversation with
in the first place.
We need to show them that hey,
this is someone that I do want asking me questions.
So they can't just show up and we can't just say
hey, I've got some questions for you.
I wanna just kind of bombard you with questions,
or I wanna probe to understand what's going on.
That's low value stuff.
No CEO or VP is gonna say,
"Yeah, I'm dying to get my brain picked right now."
So, when we show up for that discovery,
we need to first establish that we are the authority.
And so, how do we do that?
Well, what we really want to do
is use what I call the whiteboard pitch,
and it's really simple.
Now, I happen to have a whiteboard in front of me.
If you're doing this on a GoToMeeting or a Zoom,
you, chances are, have a way
to write directly on the computer or directly on the slide,
so you can actually write it out.
Or, if you're face to face with someone,
maybe you have a little whiteboard,
or just a piece of paper.
Back of the envelope is actually super cool.
The less technically savvy it is,
sometimes the more authentic it can seem.
But what we want to do is establish authority
with the prospect at the very beginning.
So, typically what I'm doing is something like this.
It's just a three-part matrix.
So I might say something like, "You know what, Don?
"Some of the challenges that we're seeing in your space
"are the following."
And so, we've got challenge one,
challenge two and challenge three.
And so, obviously you might mention what those are.
So in my space for sales people,
it might be that they've got low-cost competitors,
just another vendor,
not getting to great prospects.
So those are our three challenges,
and obviously those are something
that you would obviously just have planned out.
This doesn't have to be a ton of stuff.
And then, now what we want to do
is understand what's the root cause of each challenge.
And so, we'd say,
a lot of times what we see
is that when sales people are perceived
and they're struggling against low-cost competitors,
the real problem is value.
And so they're not showing and establishing enough value,
just like this conversation we're having here.
And same with being perceived as just another vendor.
And by the way, this could also be
because of the level of buyer that they're going after.
So let's say here,
I'm spitballing this, but let's say
it's actually selling too low.
Most sales people are very comfortable selling really low,
someone with a position of buyer or manager,
but what about those directors or VPs or C-level folks?
And then lastly, they're not getting to great prospects,
and what we find is that this is often a data issue.
And so, now I'm starting to lay out for the prospect,
just in very quick language,
some of the high-level challenges,
the real root cause of those challenges,
and then lastly is some kind of piece of data or statistic
that actually backs this up.
And so, what we see here is that 88% of prospects
see sales people as low level, or not-trusted advisor.
They see sales people as not-trusted advisor.
And what we see here is selling too low.
And again, this is according to our data,
which we just recently did a study
not more than a few months ago.
We found that over 50% of sales people won't sell C-suite.
So we've got this comfort zone issue that we see here.
And then lastly, not getting to great prospects,
it's a result of not getting good data.
And what we find from a lot of the stuff
that we're doing in our world, that most sales people,
and that's again over 50%, don't do any research.
So now, we're painting a compelling picture
of exactly what's going on,
and so we're establishing ourselves as an authority.
I have books, I have all of these things
that establish me as an authority.
What do you have that can just
establish you early on with some authority?
And at the same time, at the end
of this little whiteboard pitch,
now I'm saying something like,
"So, which of these most ring true to you?"
And now you're letting the prospects say,
"Oh, well actually,
"yeah, a lot of our people are just selling way too low."
Or, "Yeah, you know what, we're getting beat down on cost."
And so now I can engage around those challenges,
which goes right into the next piece, which is number two,
which is engaged around challenges.
So that leads us right into two.
We want to understand now our prospect's core challenges.
What are those issues that are actually affecting them?
So again, established authority,
we've done a little whiteboard pitch,
we've now ended it on which of these ring most true to you,
and now the prospect is saying,
"Oh, well, this one."
So say in this case, they're saying,
"We're being beaten down by low-cost competitors."
And so now I want to understand
exactly what's happening around those challenges.
And by the way, if you've done this effectively,
this little whiteboard pitch,
it's gonna make everything else so much easier.
Because chances are, in a lot of people's world,
if you're going to deep in the questions too early
without having established some authority,
it's likely that a prospect is gonna say something like,
"You know what, can you just tell me about your product?"
Or, "Can you just give me the price?"
But instead, because we've established this authority,
almost like a doctor.
Just recently I went with my wife.
She had an issue right in her knee,
and so the doctor actually took out an actual plastic knee
to show us what was happening in the knee.
And he said, "Okay, so chances are
"with what we're looking at here,
"and we'll obviously do some more tests,
"but chances are what happened was
"one of these ligaments is injured,
"and so as a result, it's affecting the rest of the knee."
Wow, right? That's super interesting.
And so now, when the doctor starts to ask questions,
you're like yeah, cool.
I'm totally in, totally bought in.
So once we've got that authority,
now we go right into the challenges,
which is again, we want to think like a doctor.
I use the doctor analogy
because I think doctors are so good at,
if they're a good doctor,
they're really good at getting to the core issues.
And so, that's where we're now going to focus
on really understanding what that looks like.
So, things like examples, tell me more, little questions.
But we wanna say something like,
hey, can you give me an example
of that challenge that you just mentioned?
Or, tell me a little bit more about that.
Or, I'm surprised you just mentioned that issue
about being a low-cost competitor in your industry.
Help me understand, big picture,
what do you see really going on there?
Little questions that can really pull someone out.
And you just have to be this doctor
who's, through your experience, just asking good questions.
And they don't have to be
crazy long or crazy sophisticated,
but just really simple, getting the entire picture.
So this is where you're just detective
and you're trying to understand what's going on,
engaging around those challenges and just going deeply.
And again, the key thing here is that we are not
jumping to solutions.
We are not going to solutions in this phase of the sale.
I gotta get my marker back.
We want to know that it's all about the challenges,
and not about you focusing on your solution.
You've gotta hold back on the solution.
You may know that this is gonna be such a great fit,
but just hold back, slow it down
and just focus on the challenges,
And that leads us to number three,
which is still within challenges,
but again, really having a high level
sales qualification conversation.
We want to understand the cost.
And again, you've established yourself as an expert,
so you really have earned this question.
So you've talked about some of the challenges,
what's going on, and now we want to understand
what does the cost of these challenges
really mean to the organization?
What are all these challenges
actually costing the organization?
So again, I'll use the example of myself.
Let's say I'm talking with a client
about potential training work.
And so, I've established authority, blah blah blah.
And so they say, yeah, our people are really perceived
as low cost, or they're getting
beat down by low-cost competitors.
So I say, tell me more, tell me what's going on,
give me an example that.
They're like, oh just the other day
we had this deal and it got thrown off
because this low-cost competitor came along
and just kind of burned the deal,
all of these things that are happening.
And then I say, okay, so help me understand,
what would you say these challenges that you've mentioned
are really costing the organization?
And this is where you're turning someone's academic pain
into something very real.
'Cause now they like. (sighing)
And they're doing the ROI calculation themself.
You're not doing the ROI calculation,
you're letting them doing it,
by having had a really good conversation up until now,
and now you're letting them do that math.
And so, I typically will find
that a lot of my clients will say something like,
yeah, these challenges,
these are costing us millions and millions of dollars.
And let's say they say millions of millions of dollars.
And I say, okay, I appreciate, millions and millions.
But if you were to really just
try to ballpark a specific number, what would you say it is?
They're like, $10 million.
And now you've gotten them to tell you
that the cost of their challenges is $10 million dollars.
And by the way, they're talking to you right now.
So the value of your solution,
if you were able solve those challenges,
is worth, in my case, $10 million in revenue.
It's not 10 million in profit.
You can dig more by the way, if you're really ninja.
You can say, okay, 10 million in revenue,
so give me a sense of what that would mean in actual profit.
And so they're like, 10 million in profit,
that's 2 million in straight profit.
And so now, we've understood from the cost,
we have talked about the dollars and cents.
We understand exactly what's going on
and really how that's affecting the organization,
and that's your ROI.
This is your ROI right here.
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Now that leads us to the next piece, number four,
which is understand their drive.
So I'll write down here, this is gonna get a little wonky.
We want to understand their drive.
We want to know what is actually driving the prospect
to be focused on this particular concern.
What's in it for them?
Why does this matter to them, what's driving them?
Or, how are these challenges driving them in a certain way?
So we wanna really understand what's in it for you,
and of course we wouldn't say it that way.
But we might just say something like,
okay, so I appreciate the challenges you've mentioned,
and you said that it's costing
somewhere in the range of $10 million,
which I appreciate you sharing that number.
So how is this affecting you personally?
Let's say the head of sales.
"Well, I'm responsible for that number,
"and if we don't solve that issue, I could be out of a job."
And so now you've gotten, because of just
a really thorough and thoughtful conversation,
you've gotten the person to say something along the lines of
this matters and here's why.
So this is how you're avoiding
so many objections down the road
that might be about price,
or oh, this isn't a priority right now,
because they've just told me that they're depends on it.
So if later, the VP says oh,
we're actually gonna kick this out into Q3.
I'm like, hey, George, you just mentioned
that this is affecting your job.
Help me understand what's going on here. I'm confused.
We want to understand that drive,
what's really pushing them?
Like one of my friends always says,
"What's the fire under their ass?"
It's like you wanna light that lighter
and you wanna know how is this affecting them?
Understand their drive.
And that leads us to the last one, number five.
Only present to their challenges.
So we'll put it here.
Present to challenges, and that's five.
I hope you can see that. Yeah, you should see it.
We want to be sure that you are presenting
only to the challenges that they mentioned.
This is one of the biggest mistakes that people make
in a demo or in a presentation, is that
they've done let's say a pretty thorough
qualification or a discovery,
and then they get to the presentation
and they start presenting all of this other stuff
that's outside of the challenges
that the buyer said in the qualification stage.
We only want to present what they care about.
So for me, some of my work,
let's say I'm talking to this prospect
and they're focused so much on how they're getting
beat down by low-cost competitors
and everyone's just beating them down on price.
I'm not gonna talk about, in my presentation,
all of the amazing tools for setting new meetings.
I'm not gonna be focused on prospect,
I'm gonna be focused specifically on the solution
to the challenges that they mentioned.
Now, those might be there.
So if you offer, let's say a software service,
and you have a ton of cool features,
and there's all these different benefits involved
with all of those cool features,
those can be there and it's okay if they're in the proposal,
ideally, they're not in a big part,
but you want to be focusing on, in the presentation,
what they actually care about.
So it's literally like,
hey, you mentioned this challenge,
and so here's how what we're going to do
is going to solve that.
And so you're only presenting
to what they care most about.
That way, when they see that presentation,
it just clicks, it just makes sense.
That way, they're so much less likely to push back,
they're so much less likely to have all of these objections.
Because they've already said,
"Okay, I told this person exactly what the challenges are,
"they completely understood what they were,
"and now they're presenting a solution to me
"that makes complete sense."
So only present to those challenges.
So there are the five keys to create massive value
during sales qualification.
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