Man I get a chuckle when I listen to the average sales person. No offense to those that are beyond this place in their career but I cannot get past this one annoying mindset. Sales people in general want to pigeon hole the entire landscape of leads into possible customers and exude frustration when the people they are talking to “do not get it”.

Guess what Mr. and Ms. Sales person, you are the ones without a clue. See the goal of a sales person is not to convince or cajole. It is not to smile and deliver a great pitch. The goal of any sales person looking to make sales consistently is to listen for the needs that create opportunity.

Qualification is not a tool of asking questions to decide that someone can somehow fit into your pipeline. It is not a check list of behaviours and issues that give you permission to spew solutions on someone. Qualification is the filtering of many leads into one opportunity.

What you are doing when you start discovery and begin qualifying someone is figuring out if they are worth your time. This is not meant to reflect poorly on the prospect, simply to elevate the value of your time. You only have so much of it and for every person you talk to that is not engaged and ready to act, that is time wasted.

Stop looking for opportunity and start weeding out leads that are not opportunity. Become more critical of the business requirements needed to be allowed to work with you. Start having expectations and if they are not met then rule people out. It is rare that a potential buyer that truly needs what you are selling will omit details. That is, if they are really the person making the decision.

Qualifying is a tool for maximizing your time. It is a process that many discuss but rarely seem to explain why. It is simple, if you find people that will truly benefit from what you are offering, and they have the time and money to make a decision, you will sell. If you do not find this out you are wasting time.