Lead Qualification: Getting to NO!
Lead Quality. This is the crux of most sales and marketing disputes, isn’t it? And, it is no wonder. Lead quality is possibly the most important element to sales success. Because, no matter how great your product, or sales skill, or tools, if the lead itself is not a good quality lead, you have NOTHING.
Lead qualification is harder than it seems, which is quite possibly why it is so often skipped in the sales process. The problem with that of course is ….better lead quality directly relates to higher close ratios.
So what is the trick to identifying quality leads?
Getting to NO, is just as important as getting to YES.
Many times sales and marketing avoids questions that may lead to a “no” because they don’t want to hear it and they feel they can persuade their prospect to a “yes” as long as they don’t ask the question.
This almost never works.
What happens instead is we don’t find out about the “no” answer until we’ve invested a lot…too much…time on the alleged opportunity. It is always better to know the answer is “no” earlier than later. This gives you the ability to determine one of two approaches 1) move on to more active quality leads and 2) uncover the true objection causing the no and face it (again, earlier than later).
Never be afraid to get a “no” from a lead. In fact, ask for it. Develop a lead qualification checklist of questions that deliberately leads you to determining when “no” is not just a “no” for your lead…but a “no” for you too. THAT is when you know your lead qualification process is going to really work for you.
