The Sales Qualification Process: How It Works and Why You Need To Be Doing it!

‍Introduction

The sales qualification process is the secret to unlocking a new level of sales performance. With the right process in place, your team will have everything they need to qualify leads, identify the highest potential opportunities, and pursue them with laser-guided precision. 

Without a strong process in place, even the most skilled and well-intentioned sales reps struggle to make effective calls on leads. But you can’t just implement any old sales qualification process without getting bogged down by redundant tasks and lengthy meeting checklists. 

There needs to be structure and organization to help your team get the most out of every lead. To give you a better understanding of what exactly qualifies as a ‘sales qualification process’ and why it matters so much when selling B2B products, we’ve put together this handy little guide.

What is a sales qualification process?

A sales qualification process is a set of standard criteria that your team follows for qualifying each and every lead. It helps the sales team to identify which leads are worth their time and effort, and which are just distractions. 

The idea is that certain criteria must be met before a lead is even considered worth pursuing. This could be anything from an executive’s title, to the company’s specific budget, and even their level of interest in your product. 

A well-structured sales qualification process is the key to effective sales as it ensures that your team is making the best use of their time. It keeps them away from any wild goose chases and ensures that they spend their time on the most promising leads in their funnel.

Why does it matter?

As the above section makes clear, a sales qualification process is crucial to effective sales. But why? What’s really so important about following a set of criteria for each and every lead? 

There are a number of reasons why a strong, effective qualification process is so important. The biggest reason is that it helps to eliminate any wild goose chases. This is important because it can be easy for sales reps to get distracted by low-quality leads that aren’t worth their time. 

With no clear process in place, it can be difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. But that’s not the only problem that a poor qualification process can cause. This ineffective process can also lead to a drop in sales productivity as well as a drop in customer satisfaction. 

If a rep wastes their time on low-quality leads that they shouldn’t be pursuing, they’re wasting time that could be put to better use elsewhere. Not to mention the fact that following a clear process helps your team to close more deals. 

A well-structured process helps to streamline the sales process and make sure that every part of the deal is handled with the right level of attention.

Defining your ‘Qualified Lead’ standards

When a lead makes it past the first stage of your qualification process, they become a ‘qualified lead’. This is the lead that you want to focus on and that you want to follow up with. It could be a customer or a person who expressed interest in your product or service. 

It could also be a person who filled out a lead form or requested more information from you. This stage of the process is all about deciding whether or not the lead is worth pursuing. 

To do this, you need to ask yourself some questions about the lead. This will help you to determine whether or not the lead is worth your time, effort, and resources. These could be questions about the person’s title, their company’s size, or their specific budget.

Defining your ‘Prospect’ standards

A lead becomes a ‘prospect’ when they’ve passed your qualified lead criteria and they’ve indicated interest in your product or service. They could have requested more information, they could have filled out a lead form, or they could have been referred to you by another person or company. 

At this stage, you have a little more flexibility in terms of what you’re looking for. You’re still following your process, but you’re not as strict as you were when you were dealing with qualified leads. This is because you’re not as pressed for time and you have more wiggle room. 

Essentially, you want to be looking for leads that are a good fit for your product or service. You want to look for leads that are likely to close.

Defining your ‘Opportunity’ standards

An opportunity is when a lead has passed both stages of your qualification process. They’ve become a prospect, and they’ve also shown an interest in your product or service. 

This could be anything from signing a contract, setting up a meeting, to simply requesting more information on your product or service. At this point, you’re essentially following up with the lead and trying to close the deal! You have the green light and the lead is ready to make a purchase. 

This is the point when your team should be following up with the lead again and trying to close the deal before it gets away.

Wrapping up

We’ve covered a lot in this article, but it’s important to take a step back and look at the big picture. A strong, effective sales qualification process is crucial to effective B2B sales. It helps to eliminate any wild goose chases, it helps to decrease sales productivity, and it helps to improve customer satisfaction. 

This process is the key to ensuring that your team is making the best use of their time. It helps them to identify which leads are worth their time and which ones aren’t. This is crucial to unlocking a new level of sales performance. It’s important to remember that this process isn’t set in stone. 

It’s meant to be flexible and adaptable so that your team can make the most of every single lead. That’s why it’s important to update your process from time to time to ensure that it’s still effective.