Have you ever found yourself presenting your product or service to your prospect, but you actually had no idea what parts of your presentation they really cared about?
I have, and I KNOW that many other salespeople have also experienced this awkward moment.
Because of feeling how crappy I felt in this moment, I made it a point to become a master of asking questions, because even then I knew that’s what I had missed.
Asking the right questions – the questions I knew I should have asked, but didn’t – would have given me some direction for my presentation.
And so, this is where my journey started…
Qualifying is the Most Important Aspect of Selling
Qualifying, also known as “fact finding” or “intelligence gathering”, is one of my favorite topics when it comes to selling.
This part of the road to the sale happens very early in the sales cycle, and actually sets up the entire deal.
You see, if you nail your qualifying, you will know:
1. What’s important to this specific prospect
2. What their problem(s) are
3. What they ultimately want to accomplish
4. How they will make their decision
5. What might prevent them from buying your product now
If you e been in sales for more than a day, you’ve probably thought about at least a couple deals right now where the answers to one of these questions would have helped you tremendously.
Why People Buy Anything
Do you know why you buy things? Like…anything?
The ONLY reason anybody buys anything is to solve a problem, either real or perceived.
In fact, the only reason any business exists is to solve problems.
As well, the only job of the salesperson is to solve problems for their customers.
And I hate to break it to you, but even your greatest presentation on the most impressive product ever created could not sell that product to a prospect that didn’t not think it would solve a problem for them.
So to quickly sum this up, cool products by themselves don’t sell. You need the prospect to perceive that they have a problem.
How to Qualify a Prospect
Now that you have an overview of this qualifying thing, let’s go over some questions you can ask at the beginning of your sales cycle that will help you find a problem that your product can help solve.
1. “What are you using now for _______?”
2. “What do you like about what you’re using now?”
3. “What would you change or improve, if you could?”
4. “What’s most important to you when considering a ______?”
5. “Why is that important?”
6. “What else is important to you that we haven’t talked about yet?”
7. “What are you ultimately hoping to accomplish by getting this type of product?”
8. “What happens if you don’t change anything now, and you just keep doing what you’ve been doing for the next 2-5 years?”
9. “Why are you considering this now?”
10. “What’s one problem that you wish you could just rub a magic lamp and solve today?”
I’ll be honest, I just thought of #10…but I’m thinking that will work just like the other 9 questions have for me for years.
The real goal of finding a problem is to create a gap in their mind between where they are now compared to where they really want to be.
Qualifying is just a way to determine what type of gap you’re dealing with for this particular prospect, so you know what they will value.
To Sum it Up
Qualifying is about understanding the prospect and what problems they want to solve.
That’s it.
Once you know that, you are now able to provide real value, craft an engaging presentation, and you know how to help the prospect make sense of the deal.
It’s literally all set up by how well you qualify and ask questions.
Now this is obviously just the tippy top of the iceberg when it comes to qualifying, because this is just 10 out of maybe 100 good qualifying questions that you’ll want to know if you plan on becoming a sales master.
But even asking 2-3 questions around what’s important to your prospects will put you in the top 10% of all salespeople everywhere, and the top 10% money will come with your that status!
Hope this helps!
-Jake Martincic
P.S. Send me a note on my home page if you’d like to connect and explore possibly working together in the future.
JakeMartincic.com 