What are the questions you need answered in order to determine if a lead is qualified? What answers make the ‘sales ready’?
And how confident are you that everyone in sales and marketing is using the same criteria as you are using?
Why you should care – All Leads Are NOT Created Equal
Research shows that about 25% of today’s leads will have an immediate need and the ability to buy your products and services.
So what about the other 75%?
About two-thirds are qualified buyers that aren’t ready to speak with sales yet and won’t make the purchase decision for several months or more. And the rest aren’t qualified buyers for your products and services.
So do you send all leads to sales as soon as they hit your door? If so, you’re creating unhappy sales people and potential customers.
Let’s look at your sales staff for a moment. You hired them to sell, you evaluate them based on sales, but you aren’t helping them succeed – in fact, you are throwing obstacles to success in their path.
And as for the prospective customer, let me use the following example to drive the point home. In order to stay on top of things in my profession, I download papers and webinars from a variety of companies on a variety of products and services. Most of the time, I am either never going to buy or I am in that early information gathering stage where I want to understand options.
Typically, the download is followed up by a call from a sales rep and I will tell them, honestly, my intent. If they push and try to ‘motivate me to buy today’, I am never going to buy from them or refer others to them. If they want to have a relationship with me, accept my response and ask how I would like to be served – do I need more information? Would I like another call in a few weeks? Would I like to be placed on the event invitation list?
Just don’t push me. It doesn’t work.
What is a qualified lead?
Here are the 5 basic questions every business needs to ask and get answered in order to determine if a lead is qualified:
- Does the individual have a need or an application for your product or service?
- Pretty straight-forward – if the answer is “Yes”, move forward. If the answer is “No”, ask if they know someone that does and move on.
- What is the individual’s role in the decision-making process?
- If they have the authority to make the purchase, great! If they are involved in the decision, good. If they are gathering information for others, find out who those other people are and get on their radar!
- What is the individual’s timing for purchase or implementation?
- Based this on your typical sales cycle – simple purchases can be accomplished in a day or less, while complex sales can take months, if not years. Where are they in the process – do they have a firm date?
- What is the status of the individual’s budget?
- Do they have an approved budget? What is it? How does it compare to the price for your solution?
- What is the size of the opportunity?
- This question typically results in someone focusing on the specific opportunity that came through the door – but it should focus on a larger, long term opportunities for additional products, services etc.
A Simple Scoring and Prioritization Process
You have identified the questions and possible responses, now assign point values so you can focus on those that score the highest (greatest potential)! Here’s a first pass…
- What’s the individual’s role in the decision process?
- Decision Maker: 5 points
- Influencer: 3 points
- Information Gathering: 0 points
- Is there a clear need for the product/service?
- Yes: 5 points
- No: 0 points
- Has a budget been approved?
- Funding is in place: 5 points
- Funding is in approval process: 3 points
- Funding process not started: 0 points
- What is the timing for the decision?
- To buy within the next 3 months: 5 points
- To buy within 3 to 6 months: 3 points
- To buy within 6 to 12 months: 1 point
- No specific time line in place: 0 points
- What is the estimated size of the purchase?
- What you consider a large order: 5 points
- What you consider a medium order: 3 points
- What you consider a small order: 1 point
Now, anyone that earns 20 points or more can be considered a ‘sales ready’ lead and should be immediately handed over to the sales team.
What do you think? A little messy? Noticing ways tweak this for your own situation? Good – because this isn’t an exact science. You will need to personalize, customize, monitor, analyze and modify.
And if you happen to use lead scoring and prioritization, please share your experiences so the rest of us can learn!
