When you are talking to potential qualified buyers – those who are in similar industries as your existing buyers and have similar needs, it is simple to qualify and then close business. The business use case is similar to what your other buyers in their industry and with similar needs also need.
What is hard is when you DON’T have qualified buyers. Perhaps you can’t get anyone to engage in conversation or maybe you have people willing to talk to you but ultimately not qualified. After you spend lots of time learning about these folks and working to educate them, you find they really don’t fit as an ideal buyer for your company’s products and services. The company information goes into your pipeline but you never close the opportunity because it isn’t qualified.
These are deals dead in their tracks for now. They are not real.
What do you do?
Take them out of your pipeline and move them back to “UNQUALIFIED.”
Think of the steps in your sales process and once you get to the “QUALIFIED” stage, you have real opportunities. These opportunities have to get past the “Qualified Wall” – a real place in your mind where deals cross into once they are truly qualified.
To be qualified, what do you need?
You need to know all of the answers to some basic questions about your prospective buyer and this opportunity – things like:
Scrutinize your pipeline – what is truly qualified and what is not?
It’s time to clean it up – focus on those qualified deals that can and should close. Move the rest back.
Increase Opportunities. Expand Your Pipeline. Close More Deals.