5 New Sales Qualification Strategies For 2019

December 27, 2018 | Blog, Resources

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For some time now, you have probably been using the same sales qualification guidelines that you have always used. They’ve worked fairly well, so why not? Well, the truth is that your sales leads have changed and you might be letting some slip through the cracks while targeting people who appear to be sales leads without actually being so. People go after the content that they want, but they also tend to snoop around content that they don’t want, just to see what other people are saying about things. This means that you have to apply more critical thinking to your sales qualification process. It can take longer, but the results can be better to make it worth your while.

Knowing whether a lead is a sales qualified lead or a marketing qualified lead is the first step, but it is what you do after that step that will make a difference.

Know Why Your Prospect Is Looking Now

By knowing why your sales lead is looking for a solution to their pain points, whatever that pain point may be, at this moment can help you to make decisions when it comes to marketing and/or sales. Trigger events, such as a change in team members, legal issues, or a shift into a new market can provide more incentive to address a problem now rather than later – and you can use that to your advantage.

Look To The Past, For The Future

This strategy focuses on paying attention to the past before moving into the future. The best way to ensure that you provide good sales material to a lead is to know what they have tried in the past that didn’t work – most people don’t want to repeat history. Compare buyer expectations to what you are offering. If there is some level of discrepancy, you might want to disqualify the prospect before you waste any more time.

Anticipate Challenges – And Announce Them

If your sales prospect has been looking for a solution for some time, they have found solutions that do not work. Try to notice those challenges and mark them on your sales qualification guides. Sometimes, a challenge won’t disqualify a lead, but it might require more work from a specific team member or part of your sales department. If that person or people have time, you can qualify the lead for the next step. If they do not, you may have to get in deeper to look at other qualifications in order to rank the leads.

Think About Dates

Do you have a specific goal you need to reach by a certain date? By ranking your sales qualified leads by date, you will be able to sort your sales function out and determine who needs to be where. Putting too many important leads during the month of August, when most people go on vacation, might not be your best idea. Instead, you may want to go after different prospects then and shift, if you can, bigger, more difficult leads to September.

Think About Daily Impact For The Lead

The final thing you may want to think about is this: how much will my product change the daily actions of the company? This might seem like something the lead has to worry about, but that isn’t solely the case. Instead, you need to think about whether or not they will even want to change things up – look for leads that have new management in place, are looking to rebound, or are just willing to shake things up a bit. If your product will change things immensely and you don’t think the lead is willing to do that, why even try it?

How Do You Learn The Answers To These Questions?

You can get this information before you even connect with a potential client. By working with big data that will better explain things to you, you will have an inside advantage when you do reach out to a sales qualified lead.

Creating and maintaining a healthy sales pipeline is crucial to help you meet your sales targets – and maybe even exceed them. To get there, you may need some help. That is where MRP can assist you – we have tools that carry out the predictive analytics that form the foundation of your sales pipeline. Give us a call today to find out more.

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