Why a Good Sales Qualification Process is So Important

Inadequate Presales, Qualification, Sales Process, Sales Qualification
April 11, 2017

Most organizations will say they have a qualification process. But whether or not it’s documented, being specifically and actively used is another story. Without asking the right questions, it’s very difficult to know if your solution is treating the symptom or the problem the prospect is trying to eliminate. If you’re working with all the right departments and decision-makers during the sales process, it really helps you narrow in on the best solution in the least amount of time. Here are some common issues we see with the qualification tactics most organizations use.

Here are 3 main issues with most qualification processes:

1. There Is No Process

This is incredibly common, despite the fact that the technology industry has a fairly involved, lengthy and photodune-7209833-the-golden-egg-l.jpgcomplicated sales cycle. The truth of the matter is that many solution providers don’t have a documented, good sales qualification process in place. This is problematic for many reasons. In the first place, your sales team should be working with leads that meet your criteria for pricing, size and other aspects of your target market. Without a documented and specific qualification process, it’s too easy to skip the necessary steps your organization should be using with each and every new prospect. It shouldn’t be about guessing, and it shouldn’t be about “winging it.” Your sales team should know exactly what questions and processes to follow every time to ensure they are getting the right questions and getting to the heart of the customer issues they’re trying to solve.

2. It’s Not Used

Okay, let’s say you DO have a qualification process in place. It’s only effective if it’s used by your sales team. This is a group of people who, by nature, take the path of least resistance. Given the opportunity to skip an administrative step or two, most account managers will probably do just that. So it’s necessary to show your team what benefit they gain from following the process.  You need to use rules and incentives like the ability to obtain a proposal or earn commissions to ensure the documented qualification process was used fully. This is so important because the implementation team should use the questions in the qualification module as a starting point. And implementation is where you earn your referrals and repeat customers.

3. You Don’t Know if It’s Effective

One of the most important aspects of qualification is balance. If you have too many qualification questions, you will start to scare off your prospects. If you don’t have enough, you won’t be able to recommend the best solution, and you risk looking incompetent to that prospect. The best thing you can do here is get the input of the sales team to discover what qualification questions are effective and why they’re important. Another essential step is to conduct a post-mortem on your projects to assess what the qualification process was like and how it contributed to (or detracted from) the success of the project. The qualification process has to be living and breathing to ensure that it remains relevant through the changing landscape of the technology sales environment.

One final recommendation is to tie your qualification questions to your configuration. Also, tie these questions to your customer documents like your Scope of Work. Ensure your questions are directly connected to these customer-focused documents. One of the best things you can do for your qualification process, and ultimately the success of your sales team, is to implement an automated qualification process. This takes the guess work and the options out of the equation. You decide what’s important to you and your team, set the rules, and the system takes care of the rest. Visit www.corspro.com today to check out SDA and how its qualification process can help your team achieve better sales.

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