Sales qualification helps us understand where our threats might come from and prepare strategies and sales tactics for executing Plans B. C and D if necessary. In qualifying our deals we need to look for the obvious threats. We also need to dig deeper to see if there are others. Quite often sales qualification will uncover the biggest threat of all – it’s always easier for the prospect to avoid any decision and do nothing.
Every experienced sales professional knows not to spend the commission until the check arrives. No deal is “done” until the invoice is paid. (Some expert sales guys believe the deal isn’t done until the customer buys the lunch.) They’ve all been through the pain of knowing they’ve won the sale, but losing it at the last minute.
Monitoring the process is a great way of keeping the feet on the ground. We can realistically increase our “probability” for the sales manager, as we progress through the process.
But the truth is, as sales guys we’re never at 50% or 75%. We’re always at 0% until we’re at 100%.
There are no prizes for coming second in selling.
In this constant state of “hero or zero” we need to paranoid about risk. Having qualified our way into a deal we’ve committed our time, and risked our reputation on winning.
The last thing we need is a threat we don’t understand suddenly appearing out of left field.
Threats can come at us from all directions – changes in strategy, people or external pressures – other demands for funding – new competitors.
We need to plan for all of these, watch out for them, and change our strategy as appropriate.
The fact we’re paranoid doesn’t mean the world isn’t trying to steal our deal.
Check out these short articles to find out more about sales qualification, and how to do it.
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