Selling entails many skills and aptitudes, but one thing that is often overlooked is the ability to disqualify prospects. Selling Power offers up this article – How to Disqualify Leads – which provides a thorough explanation of techniques.

First, a great image that I have not heard used in this context:

Brooks says top performers are so guarded about who goes into their pipeline that their pipelines look more like cylinders: fewer opportunities going in one end and a higher percentage of them closing on the other. Contrast that with the other 80 percent of your reps. Typically this group aims to prop up every lead that comes their way, stuff them into their pipeline, and hope some will close at the other end.

There is truth for you. We work with companies to evaluate their current team and we often see prospects welded to the 90 day forecast. I like the author’s description of a sales pipeline being a cylinder instead of a funnel. If salespeople are properly qualifying, only prospects will go into their “funnel.”

Check out the 6 questions in the middle of the article. Those questions should be asked by every sales manager of their salespeople’s prospects. I used to work for a sales manager whom I really didn’t enjoy. Invariably he would ask almost the same 6 questions of me regarding any prospect I added to my forecast. I learned quickly to ask those questions of my prospects which truly did improve my closing percentage greatly.

Lastly, the author explains why this seemingly simplistic strategy is so difficult to enact:

Brooks acknowledges that shifting from a mindset of qualifying your leads to disqualifying your leads can be a bit scary. Sales people worry that if they start tossing out leads, there wont be any more coming in to fill their pipeline. But heres the gem: These techniques will never disqualify a true buyer; they will reveal the true buyers, says Brooks.

Posted By Derrick Moe | Sales Management,Sales Techniques | | Comments(0)