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okay so lead qualification it's a very shiny topic and a lot of people like to talk about it the market is wrong right it's kind of i'm going to take a bit of a bold approach to this video because i'm going to say something that basically no one believes is true um based on my experience having built two seven figure or one multi-seven figure and seven figure company lead qualification is and that might sound strange to you because you've probably been conditioned to believe that it's important um it's not important now there is an element of importance to it and i will explain what the caveat to this is but for the most part for most people for most businesses at least in the um online space like smla coaching etc lead qualification is a waste of time it's and you might be a bit thinking like well hang on charlie what the hell like surely qualification is important no right it's not as important as you think and if anything it's probably hindering your ability to grow i'm going to explain exactly why and justify my argument here i wouldn't be surprised if some people dislike the video and comment like you're an idiot but i'm willing to like say what i believe to be true even if people think it's a stupid idea so my name is charlie morgan i've built and scaled two companies i've scaled an agency to seven figures which i've now sold and i have scaled a coaching business to multi-seven figures which i still run league qualification is right i'm gonna share why when you start a business you should not be picky beggars cannot be choosers and when it comes to working with businesses and taking clients on board you're in no position to qualify people right now lead qualification is only and it's only important and it's only useful when your calendar is full and you have prospect b who would be more likely to buy from you than prospect a so the own this is important because lead qualification is a really important asset only when there's opportunity cost of talking to someone less qualified than someone more qualified most people's calendars are empty most people have no sales calls and most people don't have any business or businesses to talk to and those that do don't have enough of it to warrant actually like feeling like they've got a lot of demand and like lead qualification is is a huge hindrance because when you okay so let's let's put into this perspective pre-judgment is the death of sales what i mean by this is that when you go to book an appointment you should not come into that appointment with any pre-judgments or conceptions of what you believe to be true about that business because what looks like what what looks like whatever it looks like is there is probably not there so if you go to berkshire hathaway's website i think there's like 500 billion dollars a year in revenue if you go to their website go on open another tab and go to berkshirehouseway.com whatever it is now if you look to that website you would think they're probably going to be a bad client you'd probably think oh they're just like they haven't got a good website they haven't got any social media pages i can't find any like contact information they're just going to be a bad client that'll be a nightmare well you could miss out signing a 500 billion dollar company look at amazon's website right amazon's like the biggest company in the world and their their website is clunky difficult to use and like most e-commerce agencies if they didn't know what amazon was would not even email amazon because most e-commerce agencies want to work with um e-commerce stores that are sort of like niched and have like one product and like they have a great cro but amazon's website is anything but like great it's a complete mess but it works and maybe you'd miss out on working with amazon those are a couple of examples now there's a few things to unpack in i don't like forms before calls so i use calendly forms to book my calls right so like what's your obstacle what you're struggling with what do you want to do how much do you want to make but i before i say i was cool and i said it's my reps as well i do not look at the look at the forms i have no before i say i was cool i have no knowledge of the person i'm talking to i do no research i have no knowledge there are no questions answered because i don't want any preconceptions which are misconceptions about this business based on my perception of what they should look like the only information that i will use to close them and make a decision on whether they're the right fit or not is information that comes directly from me asking questions to the owner of that business anything else is an assumption and we do not want to build businesses on assumptions you can try but it won't work because most humans are wrong and most humans perceive things in the wrong way preconception is or like prejudgment of a prospect is like i said the death of a sail now here's the other argument to this qualification is a complete waste of time and research is a complete waste of time you might think well what if i get on the call and the prospect says have you researched me or the prosperous says are you you've clearly done no research you know nothing about my business i would just say to them yeah you're actually right i don't do any research i don't even look at the form that you filled out and the primary reason behind that is because the only information that i want to use is the information that you give me because i could be wrong or i could assume something that would be wrong potentially and that could hinder my ability to truly help you and actually diagnose your problem to see if we can give you the proper solution the only information i'm willing to accept is information from you directly not based on anything that comes from my pre-assumptions they can't argue with that um when you haven't got a huge amount of appointments you can't be picky as to who you talk to you should talk to everyone right everyone no matter how much money you think they have no matter how willing you think they are to buy no matter how early they are on in their journey you have no idea no idea what people are actually like and sure you might be right a lot of the time a lot of the time you might book a call with someone from a third world country and they might have no money and then you might not talk to them and there are instances in my company where i will cancel certain calls if i can see certain criteria an example of this is we sell high ticket and if i see someone coming from a third world country um with extremely low um income like goals then i'll cancel the call and i know that because i've actually taken 50 like 40 or 50 calls and look like that and it wasn't until i did that but i then start to start to actually do this and cancel the calls so only like you can cancel calls and like you can you can look at the forms but you don't want to build any judgments based on the forms or the other questions the person answers and so it took me like 40 or 50 sales course with people from third world countries with low income goals to then no no longer assume but know that 99 of the time someone who meets those requirements from an external perspective will not be a good fit for us and so now i cancel those calls but everything else comes through um the other reason you don't want to to do this is because i cannot tell you how many people i've closed and sold who i thought in the initial early stages had no money at all i can't tell you how many people i've closed as a result of talking to people that have no money at all so another example of this is maybe you talk to a prospect and like maybe they're not a good fit for you but you don't know who they know you don't know how much money they have saved up in the bank you didn't know they just won the lottery you don't know what business they're going to be running in six months like in the early stages of your business everything is about network it's all about establishing friends and authority and connections in your industry and if you get a sales call with a store a brand or a business that doesn't look like they're a good fit for your services you should still talk to them because you don't know who they know who could buy from you you don't know how much money they're going to be making in six months and might remember you like it's all about pipeline it's all about relationships and sales right it's all about relationships and sales and you are in no position to turn down people now like i said the only caveat to this the only time i will cancel calls is if my calendar is full and a call comes along or like when people come along that look like they're not qualified then i'll cancel them so people that are more qualified do come in but usually we just buy we just get another rep because i know that like i've literally taken pretty much every single sales call that's ever been booked for me um over the last like five years i think i've done about 2500 sales 2300 sales called something like that and even when i'm taking every single sales call my conversion rate still sits at 40 and everyone's like oh but i don't want to waste my time and it's like dude what do you mean waste your time like you're talking you're building a relationship with and talking to someone who could potentially buy from you but even if they can't it's someone in your industry who might hold authority or who might be able to introduce you to other people you have no idea you don't know you're assuming and assumptions are a recipe for disaster and business do you want to talk to everyone no matter how unqualified they may seem you're not wasting your time like be real with yourself what else are you going to be doing that could be more important than booking a call and doing a call with someone that could actually potentially purchase with you even if there's a 5 to 1 chance of them buying it's still important you do it because like sales calls are the most single most important activity to the growth of your enterprise and even if those sales calls are with people that might not resemble the perfect fit on paper why would you cancel the call what else are you going to do that's more important than that call like i don't know nothing right so the moral of the story is try this for 30 days right don't take my word as gospel because i understand that this is a this is a contrarian stance to the the sort of most people's perspective on how this works but trust me like you'll be very surprised don't like and this is the other thing when you start the sales call drop all assumptions about the prospect if you think they haven't got the money to buy drop the assumption if you think they've got the money to buy drop the assumption don't assume they're great don't assume the worst actually you can basically i do every single sales call assuming the prospect has like a million in cash even if they don't and i know that's delusional and not true like when you if you have a assumption or prejudgment about the prospect from their form from the questions they've had that they've told you in the early stages like and you go to pitch them and you think they haven't got any money then your pitch will be in ance to that assumption of that belief and then your conviction will drop and the way you pitch will drop and you will achieve the outcome that you believe that should have happened in the first place so like it genuinely is the case that like qualification and assumption and judgment prior to the call or even during the call is the death of most sales i've signed people up for seven thousand dollar programs that are making one thousand dollars a month i've signed gyms up for our from um like 10 grand consulting deals for gyms that are just getting started um likewise i've signed gyms up that are huge and i've signed gyms up there i don't have much money or i've signed agency owners that are from the third world i've signed agency owners for our program that seemingly have no money at all like don't make assumptions or judgments i know you want to and i know you don't like doing sales calls and feel uncomfortable and want every excuse you can to get out of them right but it's so important that you go into every call with an open mind and a clean slate you let go of this qualification thing the worst thing that can happen right as well by the way is for you to make an assumption about the prospect for that assumption to be true and then for you to confirm this stupid loop right as a feedback loop where you're like he doesn't look qualified and then he doesn't buy like i knew he wasn't qualified and then now that reinforces you to think that you're clever and smart so that you're gonna be more accurate with people who aren't qualified but the reason that most people don't buy is because not because of how qualified they are but it's actually because that you thought he wasn't gonna buy so you made it so he didn't right so if you think that someone can buy you will make it so that they can it's like in in psychology it's called praxis it's basically that's like behaving in ance with your belief it's kind of impossible for human beings to behave or act in a way that isn't in the ance with what they believe to be true and if you believe someone can't buy from you then you will make it so that they can but then you'll think that you're right about your pre-assumptions which will then feed back into more pre-assumptions which will feed back into more and no closes all because you didn't want to waste your time like what like let's say you start an e-commerce agency and you book a call with someone you've got no clients or you've got a few clients and you're not looking many calls and you come across this brand and this brand's doing like five thousand dollars a month and you're thinking i charge two grand a month there's no way there is a waste of my time you don't know how much money they have saved in the bank right ready to spend you don't know if they're currently in a position of scaling where the next month they're set to do 20 grand you don't know if they know other business owners that would be qualified that could buy from you that they could introduce you you have no idea about anything about this person if you're if you're going to start making decisions on who you should work with and who you should talk to based on like five or six calendar questions then you'll be poor forever don't look at forms don't read the forms they fill out don't make any prejudgments don't do research don't look at their instagram followers don't do anything right same with like your lead sourcing just reach out to everyone right like eventually you will learn what warrants quality and what doesn't but it's only after a significant volume of sales calls with a certain pattern of prospect that you can start to actually make rational judgments as to what does work and what doesn't work for you so for example there are parameters and things that i will use to cancel calls if they are booked and i know that they're like actually not qualified because i've done those calls so my point here is that you can use lead quality and you can qualify your prospects as to whether or not you take the call but you can't do it until you've spoken to enough people with an open mind to see if they actually can buy from you or not so it's kind of like my situation if i see a call coming from like someone in a third world country and they want to make like five grand a month then i've literally sat through like 40 of those calls and done them with the assumption that people have loads of money and they want to work with me and they want to buy and none of them have closed right and that's like that's like a thing where i'm like okay i've done 40 calls that look like this with conviction using the same process i used to convert 40 with other leads and they haven't bought so now i can i'm no longer assuming that they're not fit i know they're not a good fit and now i can save my time and not waste my time on those prospects through that but the other thing with this is that if you're in business and you're an agency owner it doesn't hurt to practice sales the best sales practice you get is going to be doing sales calls so if you haven't got a huge amount of sales calls and you book a sales call they don't qualify take it anyway and put your heart and soul into the sales call because it's good practice for you and the best way to get better at sales is to do more calls so maybe you have like 10 calls in a row that aren't qualified um but that will train you and prepare you for the next one that could be perfect for you so there's no reason to not take sales calls in the early stages most people use lead qualification as a scapegoat for justification of their sales abilities if you can't close deals it's seldom is it the lead so we hired a sales rep once um for imperium and he had like 30 years of experience and he was really confident and we were like yeah sure he'll do good i was converting i was still doing sales schools we were transitioning from my calendar to hits i was converting about 35 or 40 using the exact same cold organic lead sources that we were getting and this guy came on and he didn't sell a single person over 30 calls and he kept blaming the leads he was like oh the leads don't want to make a decision or the leaks don't have the money or these people aren't qualified and i was like well i've been doing the same calls as you from the same source and i've been converting 40 so do we think it's the process and the person or the actual lead quality and he was like no it's the quality i should be able to i can sell i'm fine i'm like you're an idiot it doesn't it doesn't work like that um so if your calls aren't closing never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever point to the prospect it's never the prospect it's always you there are instances where you'll be put in sales positions where people just can't buy they haven't got the money or they're so emotionally that they can't even make a decision that's fine and sometimes that will happen but like it's kind of the exception not the rule that people don't buy because of them not because of you so this is an important lesson in business it's taken me years to learn this but i realized that you know a couple years ago and i made a lot more money and signed a lot more clients using this framework and i think it's like it's people like hiding behind lead quality because it's it's a it's a thing they can point their finger to and blame for their lack of progress in business it's an easy one to see like oh people aren't buying because my market doesn't make decisions on the first call the lead quality and like just look at it man like it's just an excuse you can either make sales or you can make excuses right and most people just want to make excuses because it's too hard for them to admit that they're not very good at closing and as soon as you actually take responsibility and say do you know what most of these calls haven't closed because of me that's when you start seeing progress because now you have retaken control well you probably haven't even had it before you've taken control over a variable in your business that you can actually now start to develop and improve but if you always believe that it's the prospect and that you're it's the quality of the prospect that's resulting in no deals coming through then like of course you're never going to get better because you're never going to try because you're going to think it's outside of your control it is in your control if you think it's in control so that's everything ladies and gentlemen i hope you enjoyed this video a bit of a rant more than anything i know it's a different stance but i can't express like how important this is to understand so if you'd like the video you can like it there's a button for that you can comment if you have anything to add and subscribe if you like the video you can consider subscribing um if you are an agency owner a coach or consultant and you're struggling to acquire clients and get more customers click the first link in the description it's not a 997 course it's not free training or a webinar or a case study funnel it's a video of me talking straight about how we help agency owners get customers check it out if you want if not don't worry that's fine have a good day talk to you later