Qualifying Sales – Understand Requirements in 3 Dimensions

Sales qualification offers lots of benefits including winning more deals, at lower cost of sale and higher profit margins. That’s potentially a 9 times improvement in a businesses performance.

Some people like to qualify their sales in fairly simple terms like budget, decision maker and time frame. Those are all part of our process, but we like to get more sophisticated – understanding each deal in 3 dimensions and planning a strategy for winning the deal in each.

Having worked our way through this part of qualification we’ll be able to work out our strategy for winning – “Who” do we need to persuade “What”.

We have the advantage over both the prospect and our competitors.  We’ve got the whole picture and a plan for positioning ourselves against both the business requirement and the competition.

When a prospect says she wants to buy something we need to understand a little more.

Digging deeper into the description of the requirement does a lot for us.

• The prospect is flattered we’re interested enough to really understand the dynamics behind the project/purchase.
• We come across as consultants, as opposed to sales people, adding to our credibility.
• We can test the likelihood of a contract ever getting signed.
• We can know how to change the rules as the sale progresses.

Prospects won’t object to us spending time with them, making sure we get it right.  They’ll appreciate the commitment.

We need to examine the proposed deal in three dimensions:

1. The Business Imperative.
   • People may buy things on whims, but businesses don’t.  They spend money in the execution of agreed strategy and that strategy will be either:
     • An initiative to create competitive advantage.
     • A response to a competitive threat.
   • We need to be sure the project will address this imperative, and keep that objective as context for everything we say.
2. The Business Case.
   • There’s always a business case, no matter how dubious.  Businesses just don’t spend money unless they’re going to get a return on the investment, somehow.
   • We need to be sure our offer stands up within the boundaries of that business case, so we have to know what it is.
3. The Personal Agenda.
   • Whilst it’s the business doing the buying, it’s people making the supplier selection.  Invariably those people are pursuing an agenda of their own.
   • The personal agenda might be a “pet” project, a career defining initiative, or even something to make life easier.
   • Whatever the personal agenda is, it won’t be published in the RFQ and should only ever be discussed in private.

Having worked our way through this part of qualification we’ll be able to work out our strategy for winning.  Who do we need to persuade what

We have the advantage over both the prospect and our competitors.  We’ve got the whole picture and a plan for positioning ourselves against both the business requirement and the competition.

Our offer is the most appropriate selection because:

• We’ll achieve the objective faster and with less risk.
• The business will achieve a better return on its investment.
• And you, Ms. Prospect will get the promotion you want.

When competitors start winning in one dimension we can change the rules, by demonstrating our leadership in the others.

If we run up against competitors who can respond to this strategy we’re in trouble, because they also know what they’re doing.  Unlikely though!

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Tagged as: Business, Business case, Competitive advantage, Decision making, Sales Qualification