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<\/a><\/p>\nI\u2019ve had my fair share of practice \u2014 and I\u2019ve learned that great sales qualification is more than worth the effort. Ready to get started? I\u2019ve got you covered with our ultimate guide to finding and keeping qualified sales leads.<\/p>\n
Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n Without sales qualification, you\u2019d probably talk to hundreds of leads a day \u2014 only to wind up with just one or two closed deals to show for your effort.<\/p>\n Sales qualification is essential for working smarter, not harder. But why is it so crucial? Let\u2019s take a look.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Sales qualification significantly improves close ratios. Otherwise, you risk pursuing leads who aren\u2019t a good fit. They may have incompatible budgetary constraints or organizational challenges.<\/p>\n B2B buying groups spend 27% of their time<\/a> conducting independent online research. With buyers doing so much self-education, effective sales qualification becomes even more critical to engage prospects at the right time with the right information.<\/p>\n There are a ton more reasons sales qualification is important. You can:<\/p>\n I once tried to sell my content strategy service to a lead I hadn\u2019t qualified. The partnership was a poor fit, and we had to cancel the agreement prematurely.<\/p>\n What does the sales qualification process look like as a whole? Let\u2019s walk through that below.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n The first stage of sales qualification is creating an ideal customer profile (ICP). You identify the type of customers best suited to your product or solution.<\/p>\n For example, since I offer content writing and strategy service to B2B SaaS companies, my ideal market might consist of brands with enough funding to spend on my services.<\/p>\n Within an ICP, it\u2019s also worth developing buyer personas that describe specific individuals within target organizations. These individuals have the experience and authority to address business pain points and make purchasing decisions.<\/p>\n Creating an ICP is a collaborative process between sales, marketing, and product development teams. However, the end result streamlines sales qualification, making the exercise time well spent.<\/p>\n Next, identify criteria for sales leads before they\u2019re placed in the qualification pipe. This process helps eliminate leads who are less likely to convert from interest to investment.<\/p>\n Key qualification criteria:<\/p>\n For example, a prospect with urgency and authority but no budget isn’t worth pursuing, despite their interest.<\/p>\n Pro tip:<\/strong> Create a checklist for these criteria you can distribute to salespeople to ensure all employees use the same method to evaluate sales potential.<\/p>\n The amount of sales, research, and prospect data required for successful sales qualification is substantial. Even experienced teams can get overwhelmed.<\/p>\n Deploy customer relationship management<\/a> (CRM) solutions to capture and centralize data for sales and marketing teams. Your team can also track emerging trends in customer behavior to help create more effective sales strategies.<\/p>\n The more you know about your leads, the better.<\/p>\n The sales process is about creating relationships, and even the best product won’t sell if your team fails to build reciprocal connections.<\/p>\n Research is crucial for building relationships. Before contacting leads, learn about their role, company, and any public insights they’ve shared.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also a good idea to track down any relevant company information. This might take the form of a recent news article or a report posted on their corporate site. You can gain more context to the conversation.<\/p>\n Finally, reach out to set up a qualifying call.<\/p>\n With lead data in hand, connect via phone, email, or social media sites and set up a qualifying call. Use this call to understand the lead’s decision-making process, pain points, budgets, and needs \u2014 not to make an immediate sale.<\/p>\n More importantly, you\u2019re looking to kick-start a relationship. If you go all-in on sales tactics during the first call and this approach doesn\u2019t work, you\u2019ve burned a bridge.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n The lead qualification process begins with a pool of leads generated through various channels. These typically come from marketing efforts, sales activities, acquisition campaigns, and product teams. For smaller organizations, leads may primarily originate from website form submissions.<\/p>\n As leads enter the system, they\u2019re classified into different categories based on their current status and level of engagement:<\/p>\n [Video: How to Qualifying Your Leads | Ask These 4 Questions to Generate Quality Leads online marketing<\/a>]<\/p>\n Once classified, leads are evaluated using a lead qualification framework. This involves asking a series of qualifying questions<\/a> to see if they’re a good fit for your product or service.<\/p>\n A qualifying question helps the salesperson determine their prospect’s fit for one criterion. That might be need, budget, authority, sense of urgency, or another factor.<\/p>\n A good qualifying question is typically open-ended. Instead of close-ended questions, like \u201cIs this a priority right now?\u201d <\/em>the better version would be “Where does this fall on your list of business priorities?”<\/em> to not lead the prospect to an answer.<\/p>\n Here are some strong qualifying questions that I like:<\/p>\n The framework helps sales teams focus their efforts on the most promising prospects.<\/p>\n Based on the qualification process, leads are segmented into two main groups.<\/p>\n The lead screening process is not static. It requires ongoing evaluation and optimization. Continuously refine the lead screening process. Optimize questions, identify successful prospect traits, and adjust frameworks to improve sales efficiency and conversion rates.<\/p>\n Eddie Reynolds<\/a>, host of the<\/em> RevOps Corner<\/a> <\/em>podcast<\/a>, dials down on how important it is to constantly iterate on your lead qualification process.<\/p>\n \u201cYou set that account score, and then you surface all these leads, and you hand them to salespeople, and then salespeople say, I call these leads, and these were worthless,\u201d Reynolds says. \u201cThis isn\u2018t set, and forget it. You keep iterating until you get to the point that salespeople are saying, \u2018Yeah, we\u2019re calling these leads, and they\u2018re converting, and everybody\u2019s happy.'”<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n A qualified prospect has passed the initial screening and is now ready to enter the sales pipeline<\/a>.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll typically do the bulk of your qualification during a discovery call, but it certainly isn\u2019t where qualification starts or ends. At every step of the sales process, you\u2019ll continuously evaluate prospects for more and more specific characteristics.<\/p>\n PQLs need specific business challenges, not vague statements. Vague prospects are harder to nurture and close. Ask discovery questions to uncover specific pain points. Prospects aware of their challenges are more likely to qualify.<\/p>\n Have you ever had several calls with your prospect, only for the deal to die because they can\u2019t afford your product? Discuss budget early to avoid wasting time on prospects who can’t afford your product.<\/p>\n Ask directly about their budget for your type of solution. This upfront approach saves time and helps focus on viable prospects. Qualified prospects have clear budgets, often evidenced by current spending on similar solutions or costly problems.<\/p>\n A qualified prospect will be able to either make the final buying decision or sway the stakeholders who make the decision. Identify early if your prospect is a gatekeeper, decision-maker, influencer, or blocker<\/a>.<\/p>\n Most often, they\u2019ll be an influencer, but they must be the right type of influencer.<\/p>\n Focus on upper-level influencers who can present solutions to decision-makers. Entry-level influencers like coordinators or interns are often not qualified prospects.<\/p>\n The decision-maker will likely be a leader and usually not the person you\u2019ll talk to during the prospect qualification process. Research the company\u2018s size and structure to understand your prospect\u2019s proximity to decision-makers. In larger companies, managers may be further from final decisions.<\/p>\n Qualified prospects have urgent needs with specific timelines (like before next quarter or year) for purchasing solutions.<\/p>\n Another way to tell? I like to look for prospects citing declining business performance or ROI from current solutions.<\/p>\n Qualified prospects understand the mutual benefits of the relationship. They trust you to provide a solution that helps them succeed in their role and impress leadership.<\/p>\n Remember: You\u2019ll likely be speaking to an influencer. The influencer, in the end, wants to shine in front of leadership.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Sales reps must qualify prospects at three different levels \u2014 organization-level, opportunity-level, and stakeholder-level qualification. I\u2019ll discuss each below.<\/p>\n This is the most basic level of qualification. Here, you\u2019ll determine whether you should do more research. If your company has buyer personas, reference them when qualifying a prospect. Does the buyer match the demographics of a given persona?<\/p>\n Questions you should ask at this stage include:<\/p>\n Opportunity-level qualification determines if a prospect has a specific need you can meet and if they can implement your solution.<\/p>\n Opportunity-level characteristics reveal if a prospect can benefit from your offering.<\/p>\n To determine whether your prospect is qualified on an opportunity level, ask the following:<\/p>\n After confirming company fit, assess your contact’s decision-making power with these questions:<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n Disqualify prospects in this order: company fit, business pain, decision-making power. Don\u2018t force your offering where it doesn\u2019t fit.<\/p>\n You could be speaking with the CEO of an organization with complete budget authority who passes stakeholder-level qualification with flying colors. But if there\u2019s no problem, there\u2019s no need for your solution. Qualify for business pain first.<\/p>\n Prospects must qualify at all three levels to advance. Disqualify if they lack knowledge of strategic goals, even if they pass other levels.<\/p>\n Disqualifying prospects isn’t negative \u2014 it helps focus on quality leads. Prioritize your time on the best prospects rather than spreading yourself thin across many leads.<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n A lead qualification framework<\/a> is essentially a rubric that salespeople can use to determine whether a prospect is likely to become a successful customer.<\/p>\n Every customer and every sale is different, but all closed-won deals share commonalities. Sales qualification frameworks and methodologies<\/a> help you qualify leads<\/a> by distilling those shared characteristics into general traits reps can look for when qualifying.<\/p>\n BANT<\/a> (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline), the Old Faithful of sales qualification frameworks, is a widely used sales qualification framework covering key opportunity and stakeholder aspects.<\/p>\n BANT uncovers:<\/p>\n [Video: B2B Sales Prospecting – Qualify Prospects with BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, & Time)<\/a>]<\/p>\n Here are a few examples of BANT questions in the context of a prospect conversation:<\/p>\n Budget<\/strong><\/p>\n Authority<\/strong><\/p>\n Need<\/strong><\/p>\n Timeline<\/strong><\/p>\n While BANT addresses many opportunity-level requirements, it misses the mark on others.<\/p>\n The \u201cultimate\u201d buying authority could be more than one person. Make sure you engage all relevant stakeholders early on in the process and secure each individual\u2019s buy-in.<\/p>\n \u201cTimeline\u201d is another area where BANT falls short today. A strict BANT qualification might tell you to cycle a lead who won\u2019t be ready to buy until next year.<\/p>\n MEDDIC<\/a>, developed by Jack Napoli at PTC, stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion.<\/p>\n MEDDIC helps sales reps understand a company’s entire purchase process, improving forecasting accuracy for high-value enterprise sales.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n \u201cFrom $0 to $100 million, [PTC was] successful because we sold a better widget,\u201d HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan says. \u201cFrom $100 million to $1 billion, we sold a shift in technology. MEDDIC became important because it\u2018s not just any old purchase \u2014 it\u2019s a transformation of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n MEDDIC is ideal for high-value products or those requiring business transformation. It helps understand how and why prospects buy and who champions your product internally. This information is crucial for maintaining an accurate pipeline.<\/p>\n\n
Why is Sales Qualification Important?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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Sales Qualification Stages<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nStage 1: Create an ICP.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Stage 2: Identify key criteria.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Stage 3: Put technology in place.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Stage 4: Do your homework.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Stage 5: Make contact.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
The Lead Qualification Process<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nStep 1: Lead Generation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Step 2: Initial Lead Classification<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 3: Lead Qualification Framework Application<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 4: Lead Segmentation and Next Steps<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Step 5: Refine Process<\/strong><\/h3>\n
What is a Qualified Prospect?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Attributes of a Qualified Prospect<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n1. Clear Pain Points<\/h4>\n
What to Look For<\/h5>\n
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2. A Budget (or a Willingness to Make One)<\/h4>\n
What to Look For<\/h5>\n
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3. Purchase Power<\/h4>\n
What to Look For<\/h5>\n
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4. A Deadline or Strict Timeline<\/h4>\n
What to Look For<\/h5>\n
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5. A Mutually Beneficial Relationship<\/h4>\n
What to Look For<\/h5>\n
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Levels of Prospect Qualification<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Organization-Level Prospect Qualification<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Opportunity-Level Prospect Qualification<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Stakeholder-Level Prospect Qualification<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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When and Why to Disqualify Prospects<\/strong><\/h2>\n
How to Qualify a Lead with Lead Qualification Frameworks<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The BANT Qualification Framework<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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BANT Limitations<\/strong><\/h4>\n
MEDDIC Qualification Methodology<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nCHAMP Sales Qualification Framework<\/strong><\/h3>\n