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so if we were to ask you who is your customer uh what would your answer be um does mis everybody or misses anybody exist uh and what signals that that customer might not be the one for you I see too often in the trading rooms that salespeople sales organizations are treating everyone as a qualified Prospect and pushing so hard down their sales process that when the wheels come off inevitably further down the line they lose the sale they lose confidence or because they didn't have potentially a better qualification process at the start so if we could just build some form of qualification into our sales process and the conversations that we have what benefits might we see it's that that we're going to discuss today um my guest literally wrote the book called the qualification struggle um because I assume there are commonalities in what I've just said that he sees as well well we're going to discuss all sorts around qualification and the benefits of it and to get a greater understanding of why some organizations avoid it um Bram welcome along to you uh please do say take some time at this moment to introduce yourself tell us about your work and how you got into writing a book about the qualification struggle first of all rob thanks for having me on the show um I really appreciate your time and the time of these audience qualification keeps me busy it's one of the main frustrations of my professional life I get presented with a lot of nice opportunities from the best and the nicest companies in the world but I have no idea where I should focus my attention to how I should spend the resources sometimes I hit on a path together with a with a prospect which is yeah at that end and that's not per se a bad thing but I'm spending resources of my colleagues I'm spending time of my colleagues this struggle this qualification struggle I call it is the re is the subject of my of the of my latest book and I'm sure that many of you recognize this struggle you have come uh across opportunities projects that you that your prospects really want you to do because they think you are the best fit to their project you hit on with them and Upon a Time Yeah along the line you'll find out that it's not the right fit this really hurts me my commercial sense it really hurts get the hurts get gets hurt quite a lot so that's that's where we're talking about today thanks again Rob for having me here no thank you thank you for taking your time I mean time is a commodity that's that's referenced in your book uh you right in the preface I think you acknowledge the value of of the reader time of your time of my time why are sales people so Keen to not value their time by lacking this sense of qualification is the P the pursuit of just getting busy or why are we so easy to not value and respect our time our prospect's time our organization's time I'm not sure for me I'm planning to get 100 years old but every every minute of my life is precious and I assume that that's also true for the people around me for my colleagues for my prospects so it's it's my duty just to to make sure that we are um continuing a journey which leads to somewhere leads to me adding value leads to my company adding value to our prospects projects why I feel that uh disqualification process lacks the attention is because salese are afraid to say no to a client they they know they feel that a client might be or that the prospect might be might not be qualified but they feel all kinds of pressures they have a a pipeline which is not filled the order book of the company is not is not completely filled or the other way around it's overfilled so they feel that they have to make a decision on based on on what's what's happening around them those pressures influence the qualification process a lot there are a tons of uh models available like band or medic that prescribe a module for qualification a module for qualif qualification meeting certain criteria if you take bond for example budget Authority need timeline those qualification criterias can be manipulated by salesp people in their favor if they want to have an opportunity qualified then they make sure that they GA the answers that they want from their Prospect to get their opportunity qualified and that's basically driven by the pressures that are surrounding the sales people if we understand as a organization those pressures we can better manage qualification process in general again the time is most precious and it's not the time only from the salespeople sales people can entertain a client can entertain the prospect but they also need their the time of their colleagues they need to spend resources of the company are those resources really adding value to that specific Prospect we should ask that all the time I I like how you think it comes from a place of fear you know they might engineer their pipeline to to be more full than it really is even though they've got clients or prospects in there that they know aren't really a good fit but from a place of fear they will include it and they will spend time and resource on it do you think and have you seen in your experience that that Culture of Fear comes from a leadership position to drive numbers to make sure the pipeline is always full rather than taking a step back and thinking well who really are the best type of prospects we want in our pipeline never mind just filling it interested your thoughts around that that what's driving the fear from the sales professional yeah the fear is fueled from it within the the sales professional itself and it's it's it's additionally fueled by leadership and Company gold culture if there is a culture of um mutual respect freedom to take decisions um uh and backing up of each other's decisions the qualification process will be Flawless but in real life this is not the case sales people they feel they always feel the pressure of their pipeline if it's not full enough they yeah they make different decisions than if if it was a yeah completely filled pipeline leadership keeps on putting the numbers together they want the sales people to hit the targets no matter what at least that's what the sales person is feeling on the other hand also the organization there is tons of pressure from within the organization people tend to feel busyness nowadays so they feel to be busy busy with operational stuff if a salesperson comes with an little bit extraordinary opportunity which is really adding value to not only the prospect uh life but also to the just the p&l of your company they feel that they have to to execute project and that's making them nervous they this this pressure is pushed back towards the sales person and he will he or she will feel that it's a leadership thing and a cultural thing if we allow sales people just to make a decision without uh without taking the numbers into account and they just can focus on the quality and we more or less motivate motivate the salesperson to make a good qualification call we will be more laser sharp focused to the prospects that we really can add Val do you think that leadership is also lacking elements of coaching and pipeline reviews that just leave almost the salesperson to go and look after their own Pipeline and then the language becomes inconsistent so one person's Prospect is another person's suspect and we get Blurred Lines and therefore there's no one view of what the actual pipeline is would would coaching help that do you think from a leadership perspective and break that cultural sort of drive for more yeah yeah always coaching will help especially in a leadership position you should coach uh your sales team to to to identify the the the qualification criteria at least don't try to overrule what the salesperson is feeling try to by questioning and try to find where the salesperson thinks he can add value to that particular opportunity if we take over the role of the salesperson in the qualification process as a leader h we will kill ENT entrepreneurial Spirits in our sales teams you you want to um as a leader you want to empower your sales team to make the qualification call themselves if they they are if they are afraid to take take the call they will always come back to leadership and Leadership ship um takes decisions based on um rational criteria but he doesn't particularly wants to um see what what the real opportunity is the opportunity behind the opportunity and that's where sales leadership uh is involved and but yeah the goal of the sales leadership and coaching should always be to fuel the entrepreneurial Spirit of the sales person spirit with with those people and perhaps often you see that entrepreneurial Spirit drained out of people because because of the fear because of the culture to drive more numbers and certain industries have more pressure to drive those numbers external forces change the market of course which mean that sometimes there isn't a market there I'm sure during covid when people couldn't buy anything what were the salese to do and we saw we saw times when they just there was genuine fear on their face because they couldn't do what they've always done they couldn't do the driving they couldn't do the prospecting as they as they were used to doing so they didn't know what what to do at times and it was very very worrying I think for them um because they were so in control of what they they do themselves and when they couldn't do it there were gaps um one thing we see Bram is um is almost a pride I don't know if you see this as well a pride from sales teams and Leadership and management of those organizations but say everyone's our customer if the phone rings everyone is our customer we won't say no we'll serve them and I just think it's very ironic if you like yeah they know they're not hitting targets but they'll say yes to everything something seems to be going wrong and just talk to us if if you can about why you think um a targeted sales approach is important but perhaps more importantly why you think businesses don't do it yeah first of all it's it's my belief that as a salesperson you should have the belief that everyone can be your customer if you start talking to to a prospect be open-minded even if he if if it's a clear Misfit in the beginning you might still end up with a really nice nice yeah nice client or maybe even a referral so start open-minded everyone is a customer I think that's not a not a bad thing in in in in the belief systems of salespeople however of course there's a there's this disqualification process to be done to turn a suspect into a prospect or a prospect into a into a client and this qualification process Narrows down the customer base so if you take the funnel throw in all suspects which you still can consider to be a potential client but you narrow down during qualification process and this this allows for um first for for filtering of course but it always allows for good conversations at the top of the of the the first steps of the commercial process so the discovery step so to say the discovery every step allows for Mutual qualification so the client is qualif the prospect is qualif qualifying you and you are qualifying the the prospect but this is a mut conversation and after that you you both agree on if your prospect can become a client not everyone is a client but it's a mutual it's it's it starts with a conversation you in my belief you cannot disqualify or qualify a prospect without a real conversation that's my personal belief these and and and the hidden gems are in that conversation for sure so when you say about targeted sales approach what do you mean by that because I agree and we talk about with the organizations that we work with that they should build what we call a holding pattern ultimately this is people that you believe one day might want or need your product or service one of the qualifications questions right but at the moment they don't that doesn't mean to say one day they won't so we encourage every salesperson to have what we call the holding patent their own network that they can inform and educate and speak to and keep engaged but I think often even at that simple level it's missing because they'll they'll have an inbound call or an email they'll treat as a customer they'll either force it to say yes there and then so it becomes misaligned Y and they won't think well it's not a customer yet but what I'm going to do is I'm going to add them to my LinkedIn Network I'm going to add them to my email list and I'm going to keep them educated and informed because when they signal that they want or need what I've got it to sell they'll come to me and I think it's a big step that's missing probably because it slows down some of the sales process it it makes sales people go slower because they can talk to many people at once at the top of their funnel whilst they aren't qualified and I just wonder why you think that some organizations are avoiding a targeted sales approach and are leaning more towards the any inquiry as a lead sell to it regardless why why are we avoiding it why don't we call it out and and build it in at the top right from the front you think yeah it's of course two- sided one is the fair for missing out missing out on nice opportunities and the second one is just being afraid to be too targeted too nrow organizations tend to be come too narrow when there's or when there's um when there stocks in the company that the stress levels go up only by then they choose a targeted approach they and then they want to be laser sharp they look at their one day they wake up and they look at their overhead and they see a sales machine which is just enormous in comparison to the rest of the organization and then they feel oh man you have to do something and then they start with a targeted approach they they narrow down the qualification process to to few criteria that that are hard to meet with with those criteria they keep they try to funnel down all the activities of the sales people uh but as soon as um the numbers drop they let lose of those targeted approach again uh and that's that's a shame because within the targets there is still a lot to explore you can always go deeper into the target you can also always add more value which is recognized by your Niche with by your target audience and if it's recognized you will you will be allowed to little to make a little bit more margin which makes it it's okay for not the quantity but the quality goes up of your of your opportunities yeah of course of course I think I want to touch around the the personalization and talking to a more of a segmented customer profile shortly um but I just want to pick up on the the framework you you suggest in your work that the band framework I guess which a lot of people use we use very very similar we us use the BN um is there a budget have you got the authority and is it a product or service that you need for us as a service provider it's a great it's a great measure before we start having more serious conversations you suggest it might not be adequate and and I think there'd be great value for the viewers and listeners of this to understand why it might not be adequate and where can we go if it's not where else can we look for qualification uh yeah that uh a bond was introduced by IBM in the 50s and that at that time sales people will were getting out to client's offices educate them from from day one things are totally changed nowadays when we talk to buyers for the first time they already they already were on the buying Journey for 50% until they they already made a buying decision almost they know they allocated their budget they they know their decision their what what that's needed in the inside their organization to make a decision they know they identified and they structured their requirements they have an idea about the timeline and once they report to you bond is only there H basically to summarize the buying Journey until they speak to you there much more in this discovery phase that goes far beyond band other Frameworks probably suit a little bit better but they get more complex if I can give you one tip is that you always early in the process should identify your some Frameworks so you they call it the champion so that's your your guy into the guy or woman into the organization the one that should coordinate and lead the the buying process you should identify who that is if you have identified that during your qualification process then you're really already far in the in the process so you know who that guy is or guy woman is and and yeah so far Frameworks um any framework will do to to at least rationalize the qualification process but don't underestimate it the the precious internal pressures pressures that come from the opportunity so is there a lot of specific ations that you can meet or partially meet uh the pressures from the sales person himself if he's going on holiday next week he more likely to disqualify the opportunity take those assess those kind of pressures and discuss them within your team yeah be open about that um so framework very good make sure there's at least uh you you identify the champion and for the rest be open to the all the pressures that around those qualification so I guess when you say identify the champion you're talking much more about larger complex deals where you know we we see people saying well there's many more stakeholders in the decision now we've got operation we've got Finance we've got um purchasing and it's almost like more of a a joined up approach to buying now so how are you helping organizations understand the more complex buying process if there is more if there are more stakeholders yes get the champion great at what point do you start to engage other stakeholders in that decision do you think yeah you have to uh you have to address the the objections that your Champion will get from all the stakeholders around him and if you can do that before he's talking to you then you then you really winning the Battle of trust H if you are not uh if if you're already talking to your champion before he's going into the internal discussions then you have to make sure that he has all the tools to convince the rest of the decision- making unit and you're there to support him your Champion is do is doing the the the difficult selling part of your of your job it's not you that sells uh the salesperson is not selling he's basically giving tools and giving information to the champion to sell your service to to his colleague and that's where the that's where the where you can make the most difference as as a salesperson if you are on the journey with your Champion how can you together convince his um his decision making unit if you for example take an engineer who tasked to to find an instrumentation solution for monitoring their uh production line that engineer knows technically how to solve that that that issue he probably of he might have used some of the components and the services that you provide as a as a company but then he needs to he starts talking internally he presents his technical solution and then he gets all the objections from Finance from the users on the production line from Q&A from Q QA QC he gets all those questions in and he has no idea how to solve them and that's if you as a salesperson have educated or as a company through your marketing channels have educated this champion on those specific topics you will gain his trust and that's why you can win win the battle for your client and you can of course add the most value as a sales person in general so so I I like how you bring up the objection piece because I think sometimes sales people do wait too long to get objections we we observe in the in the trade rooms and organizations we work with that there are really there aren't really that many new objections they're all very common but we don't address them until we're in the room whereas I like what you're saying there if I'm right and please correct me if I'm wrong you're suggesting that we could enable the champion within the organization within the buying organization through content for example common objections that you might hear in the next three or six months during our time together please share this with Finance please share this with purchasing is that where you're going with that because I think that could be a great shout yeah that that's definitely Where I'm Going H that's and the better job we do in that phase the more easy the the buying process in general is you want to make your Champion feel at ease you want to make your Champion feel supported um yeah and if that's the case then you will definitely get you into the project interesting and and just going back to the band framework work I like how you said the the customers almost qualified themselves because like you say they're 50 there's some some school thought says they're 80% through their buying Journey when they pick up the phone or want the face to face so it's assumed there's an element of assumption that they've got the budget The Authority they need how can an organization make sure that that customer is a good fit for the organization if the customer is saying yeah I've got a budget I've got the authority and I've got the need how can an organization then have a check and balance to say well does is this a strategic fit for us shall we accept this customer because I guess in complex negotiations where it's a large long drawn out sales cycle there needs to be some check and balance so what might that be for an organization to do if I'm phoning you up to say I've done all my research I've got the budget I've got Authority and I've got the need where do I sign how can we just put the brakes on there as an organization just to check our own homework in that respect um typically when clients report to you in that way then you know they they basically using you as an alternative to to to compare you to competition they really want you to they really want to motivate you to quote as soon as you quote then you don't hear anything them that's that's what's happening if you if you get such customer on the phone on the other hand if you did the qualification in in a normal way Mutual conversation and you qualified based on bond criteria there still might be a feeling within yourself that are we really adding enough value to this client do we spend the resources to help this client rather than helping another client that's only a limited amount of resources available um yeah that it's it's not a it's it's not black and white there's always a sense of feeling it you know as a as a seller where you add most value and if if that's not with a specific project or an opportunity you have to address that and you have to challenge the perception of the of your customer yeah and obviously the customers or potential customers are they've got the world of information at the fingertips they've got you we can research ourselves we educate ourselves we inform ourselves about our own problems we know or we think we know our own problems and we know what Solutions we need so how is how is that digitization uh of the marketplace affecting qualification in its most historic way if customers are coming to organizations saying I know what I want how can we how can a sales organization use digital as an asset to help speed up the qualification process or nurture more suspects do you think yeah we the digital digital is is essential it's vital to the qualification process there if we assume that our prospects research really well and they already 50% % down the buying cycle that we can better make sure that we have them qualifying themselves ing to the the the criteria that we mentioned and that we also present all the information at the right time at the right volume at the right uh with in the right format so they can qualify themselves and get ourselves qualified within their decision- making units and that's where Ai and other forms of data can help we need to be able to predict what our prospects need to see at a certain time and if we can predict that well we can present them with the information they need qualify themselves and to sell our service within their decision- making unit I see BR I don't know if this is this is what you see as well that a lot of what we talk about with uh digitization and content and resources to help people qualify themselves it's historically more of a marketing job so that in itself can challenge some sales professionals because they have to become more engaged in the earlier part of the buyer Journey because we see so often that the marketing department is often a team of one the sales team might be a department Department of 15 to 20 the ratio doesn't help so so how can salespeople become more active earlier to to help these buyers make their own decisions better so they're not irrelevant and they're not getting left out later on how how do you how do you address that IM balance if it is becoming more digital yeah for sure that sales people need to be more need to get more tax heavy that's uh especially we expect that from younger Generations but still they need to be translate what they what they hear in the market to some kind of content and it can the format doesn't matter it can be video it can be written content but turn everything that you that you put out there uh information in your technical proposal for example turn that into something that's worth sharing online everything that's worth sharing to one client can be shared to many make a habit out of that leadership should push and or should motivate salespeople to be active online there's no way around it we have to start adopting that that doesn't mean that you have to be online all the time that the the the real difference that A salesperson can make is still in a conversation and this this conversations that what's what's making us as a sales profession still relevant and we will remain relevant but before we talk to to to prospect they have already done so much research and everything that we can help them in in yeah into the first discussion with us up front it helps it does and you've mentioned yeah yeah you've mentioned AI a couple of times as well and I think how are you seeing AI play out we're at such an early stage of it I don't think anyone can answer with any certainty what what it's going to look like in five years time for example but what I'm seeing and what you might be observing is that people are very happy to almost absolve themselves of responsibility and say well AI can do that for me so we're we're almost choosing not to be active earlier in the Biers Journey say ah the robots will be fine I'll be waiting for when they phone me and I I just think in a way we're setting ourselves up for a big fall if that's how we continue um what are you seeing with AI is it helping or is it hindering or is it a bit of both yeah we still have to get used to AI uh but in the in this in the top funnel process it can really help just take an example from today we are sourcing an HR tool within the organization that I work and this HR tool should do 360 reviews peer-to-peer reviews and and and funnel that to a database that's basically what we want to buy when we start googling we can we come ac across all kinds of really fancy HR tools that go far beyond uh what we really need we we have we know what we want we have we have we know we have identified our need we know our requirements AI on on the the software providers if they have decent ai ai can predict what we want uh they can uh take the data from Google what we searched they can find out who is working within the organization who probably is is taking this on as a project what's what's what's their preference on how they want to work they know how AI can predict how we make decisions within our organization so how can we not translate this how can AI not fuel the way that that resarch results are presented to us in a way that's really fitting our our benefits and not having the the the the small portion plus tons of different features AI can do that for us um so I believe there there is yeah it it really helps in the in the qualification process a lot do you think it's helping already now and and how do humans therefore stay relevant if AI can just do everything do you think that there's going to be more of a pressing need for humans to prove that it's still me you're still still dealing with a human here and and will consumers even want that are you seeing that consumers don't want to speak to salespeople I think in we are talking B2B uh that's where at least I I find myself in in a daily life and then B2B um there's just limited resources and uh we can only present our our way of our view of how how things are done effectively when in a conversation AI can predict a little bit but we are we need conversations of how we can how sellers can can offer services effective L but also how how the user can use it effectively and there's a this match will will most probably still require humans to interact I hope so really do I really hope so too much fun yeah we've covered some decent ground around in the with the the fear it's coming from a place of fear that we are filling our pipeline because the culture and Leadership of the organization hasn't hasn't helped Define that process or not LED through coaching the opportunity to highlight objections early and answer those through through content I think is is a huge opportunity uh especially when you're working with a partner as an ally into a wider buying decision group I think that's a very insightful piece um and how a customer may not be a fit right now but by building a holding pattern through our networks through our LinkedIn through our emails through our content we can educate and inform or help our bu our potential buyers educate and inform themselves as they move forward um I just want to try and wrap up Bram with a few tips if you like quick wins if there is such a thing for organizations who might want to review their qualification process or indeed if they look in the mirror think we don't really have one we're treating everyone the same where can we look where can an organization start to build that process yeah of course there's tons of things that that can be done but if I can make give a suggestion for quick win is don't take disqualification lightly don't disqualify by just replying to an email uh we're not going to cour always take up the pick up the phone and talk to a prospect try to explain your concerns if you're if you if you feel there's a mismatch if if you are you you think that you have to disqualify this this particular opportunity talk to the talk to the prospect learn what he really wants why he has presented this this opportunity to you tell him your concerns tell him there's a there's a vendor or there's a supplier in your neighborhood which is uh is is doing a good job better ask him why not ask him those kind of questions let let your prospect disqualify himself if if it's really the case and if he doesn't want to get disqualified he will do his utmost best to get qualified and and if he does that then he will give away lot lot more information he will be clearer about this budget he will be clearer about this decision process and he will be clearer on on how you can win as a as a as a yeah selling company and you can still disqualify after this conversation mhm but at least never disqualify without talking to a client additionally uh okay you've got your qualification criteria I think you can engineer your your structure you can put it into a spreadsheet but to decide make a note of your dream clients and your future a clients and future a clients I mean with that that those are clients that are typically not within your industry but in an industry that you uh might want to touch upon in a couple of years that you feel is interesting but yeah you don't you don't focus on it yet but those future a clients might be really helpful let the rest of the organization know about your dream clients and your future Aid clients so whenever an opportunity pops up with those clients those prospects which is yeah not really qualified you can expand the qualific qu qualification criteria little and the rest of the organization will understand why you do that it's because you want to go the extra amount for this specific client and that really helps so make visual inside your organization and and don't treat everyone the same we're going after these dream clients our content has to talk to dream clients our website has to talk to dream clients the messaging we're going to showcase the content the case studies are all going to talk about this and as an organization that's where we're headed and I think that consistency is really missing Clarity of of messages really missing and it lends the sales team to go after anything and everything because what else have they got to go on yeah yeah and and Bram just in closing do um tell us about your book I can see I think there's a couple of copies just behind your shoulder so right next to you there so so tell us about the book tell us more about what we we haven't covered in this conversation uh where can we find it and how can we engage with you of course on Amazon it's it's released one year ago I think it's doing quite well um it's written for small business owners actually they feel the qualification struggle the hardest they either they have too many opportunities or too little they know they they need to Target but they they are scared because they have to to run their temply business and they have to feed it with with opportunities and with it work so it's written for small and mediumsized businesses but there's there's a lot of takeaways for other sales leaders as well and especially yeah the pressures that's surrounding the qualification framework brilliant and you're you're active on LinkedIn yeah I'm very active on LinkedIn um nowadays I'm trying to um to funnel my my image towards an a subject matter expert on on a little different topic but it's just because that yeah we have to get Brad on the table brilliant brilliant well I'll put all the links in the video and the description and uh yeah listen thank you so much for taking time with us today to talk about all things qualification I think there's some great takeaways there um so thank you for for sharing your Insight and your time with us BR really appreciate that thank you rob Take Care thank you