Sales lead qualification criteria for HighTech

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Oh juice maybe a little bit about myself first so as unloyal introduced me i'm t-bo Hankins I work for team leader and and which is in Belgium a company in Belgium so what is team leader maybe first team leader is an online tool so it says software-as-a-service it's a website where people can have their customer relations management project management they can create invoices very easily and they have a ticketing system for their support customer support service so it helps as amis being more organized build better relationships with their customers to follow up on prospect and collaborate more efficiently as a team we've existed for four years now we were started up now I think it's safe to say very scallop we're 80 people we're in Amsterdam in Berlin and Belgium of course we're opening an office in Madrid this week last week actually and we're looking into Paris and Rome as well so it's going very fast and I think for you it would be cool to see like some of the growing pains that we've encountered especially on lead qualification so that you can apply it because I assume you're all starters as well are you looking to start is anyone here more into the tech sector or is it like startups in in general so who's more tech 1 person ok it doesn't matter because whatever I'm going to say about lead qualification will be very general so don't worry about that also everything I'm going to be telling you today are things that I've learned in the last year I don't have a background in sales I have background in politics so everything I'm going to be telling her today things I just witnessed and experienced firsthand and that's how you will learn them as well so everything is very easy to learn all right let's have a small overview of what we're going to do today so first of all I'm going to be talking about what lead qualification is what is it anyway secondly why is it so important so we're going to be looking at pitfalls and common mistakes that are made especially in the beginning of your sales process and then at the end of the showing you the how to ask the right questions this will not be purely lead qualification but it will help you during your sales process all right first of all what is lead coalification anyway this really comes down to one very very simple truth and this is it's about establishing whether it is a match between your solution your product your service and the needs of delete so maybe first of all what is lead and it can be anyone you come into contact with and you can be a potential buyer of your product or your solution I should say so this could be a visitor on your website someone who activates a free trial account of your software someone who comes talk to you at a business event someone who emails you for more information this could be even someone you meet at a party or in a bar and at first you're flirting but then suddenly it turns out that they're more interested in your solution than in your beautiful eyes and yeah you can talk business with them so the central question and each qualification will be when should this person man shoot is lead by your solution and when should they not so it's all about feeling finding your sweet spot lead so your sweet spot lead as a type of customer and niche someone very specific that you had in mind when you created your solution so this is like the perfect customer for you because he will have the exact needs for what yours for what you're offering and they will be willing to buy it so this will of course have huge implications first of all on your marketing because all your outbound actions all your lead generation actions of marketing will be aimed at finding this sweet spot lead so this exact type of customer or potential customer you will do anything to get to them secondly of course it will have an impact on the way you will pitch your product because you will adapt your your your sales pitch to the needs and the specific situation of this sweet spot leat so that implies that you will of course have to know your product very well which will be the case because you've made it and your lead you will have to know about your lead what is their situation as a context what do they do what is our business how many people are there working there this is what the qualification is about so knowing who the lead is and knowing if he fits the profile of your sweet spot let's have a very very stupid example suppose this is your product so you're selling cookies and of course you know what's in the cookies you know we have the gluten free you know if there's sugar in them and whatnot and that one day these guys show up so these are your your leads for the day and lead qualification is all about finding that one person in there who's the best fit for your solution so you'll have to see who's in need of it who's willing to pay for it and who has the authority to make the decision whether they will buy it or not I think we can all agree it will be the big blue hairy dudes on the right who will be the best your sweet spot lead for this for this solution like for instance here you will not try to sell it to the hairy green dude in the trash can because he doesn't have any money so and he likes eating trash instead of cookies so that's what me qualification is about it's a very stupid example but it makes sense maybe let's see where this liberal eat qualification is in the sales process so this is the team leader sales process on top you see the different people who are working on these faces and the yellow and red are the are the means of doing it the tools you're going to use and then the blue square so they're not very visible but the blue ones are the actual faces in our entire sales process so first of all we have our market here who will try and get as many leads as possible so as many people who will hear about this and go on a website and then hopefully they will activate a trial version of team leader so they will create an account and they'll have two weeks of free testing and that's when I come in so I'm an Inside Sales so I will you see one connect so I will call him up and I'll start qualifying I will ask questions like so what is your business what are you doing now where do you think there are some problems with the way you're working now how did you find this so that's lead qualification number two once I have established that these people are sweetspot leads or at least good enough to go on with then we will give a demonstration this could be online or this could be if there's like bigger clients then we will send a sense of month to to them and analyze their their processes in-house and so it's very important that I'm kind of a gatekeeper you see I'm an Inside Sales and I will never send one of my one of the closers one of the salespeople I will never sent them to the other side of Belgium I know it doesn't sound far but - as it is for someone who is not really worth it say it very very quickly but that's it I have to I have to follow up and see are they worth chasing after or not and otherwise we shouldn't waste any more time on this and should not waste the other person's time because this customer is looking for something and I really don't have to offer it then we shouldn't waste this time so once we have qualified them then we will be they will be given a demonstration and then hopefully they will become clients after this of course there's a customer success who will follow up like are they using the tool around well are they happy clients because also that's very important this is of course the customer journey that you will see on the bottom so at first they will it identify that they have a problem and they will start looking for a solution once they come up to you and they're your leads they will start evaluating like just the way your qualifying them they are qualifying you they're looking at what your solution has to offer and it probably also looking at other tools while they're at it then hopefully they will purchase and in the end promotion very important you have to keep them happy you have to have a good customer support service and you have to follow up and if there's a complaint you have to really show that you care it's very very important we'll come to that later so in short after lead qualification you should have enough information about your lead knowing if it's a sweet spot you should know whether you have to sell them or page them your solution and how you can do this most effectively because different leads will pry your approach right so why is lead qualification so important here we'll be looking at some pitfalls first of all lead qualification is all about resource efficiency you're all going to start the business or have already started a business and I think you'll know that you don't have too much time on your hands you already you spend a lot of time on developing your solution developing a product and then the selling process of course you want it to pay off as best as possible so lead qualification will make sure that you don't waste any time or resources on unqualified leads because they're scarce you don't have that much time so that will allow you to concentrate all your time and efforts on those sweet spot leads that you've defined earlier so let's look at some pitfalls that might pop up if you don't qualify your leads properly so first of all and properly the qualification will prevent you from pitching your solution to someone who doesn't need it at all and will never be interested in buying it so that would be wasting your time so in this case I tried to be as French as possible with this guy although I heard that apparently here in France he's considered Italian but that weird yet so in America this this guy he's a skunk you know moufette and he has a French accent but perfectly here in France has an Italian accent so but long story short he has a solution he has a product he wants to sell which is himself so he wants to sell his body and all the love that comes with it and he thinks that here on the right this cat was called Penelope and he's called Pepe LePew and he thinks that Penelope will be the history spotlit he thinks that she's is like the best one and she's really looking for a solution like him she's really into skunks but he hasn't qualified her so he doesn't know that she's another skunk at all she's a cat and cats I mean they have very good noses so they will not be interested in the skunk she's not interested in his solution but the problem is he didn't qualify so he'll start chasing after her everywhere every time you will spend a lot of time on chasing this lead but she's just not worth it she'll never buy and even if she buys she'll never be happy with the product so don't be this guy I mean really don't not even just a business and anything in any situation don't be this guy don't you're chasing after a hopeless situation all right secondly properly qualification will prevent you from trying to convince the wrong person in the sweetspot company retargeting so let's say you're already determined that's one of your leads as a sweet spot and you want to go and talk to them you want to pitch your product but you see that it's like a company and there's multiple people you have to talk to there's like a whole team decision-making unit we call it that you have to talk to and this team might consist of more than one person so this is just a scheme this is very theoretical and this can be the case that it's exactly like this and a company but of course it can be the case that some of the roles are played by just two person or one person so you're only talking to two persons who fill in all these roles so first of all there's the initiator so on the bottom the initiator will probably be your first contact so he'll be the person who identified the fact that there's a problem you'll know that there's something wrong that there's something missing and he'll try to look for a solution this doesn't mean however that he'll be the one making the decision so although you might have a lot of contact with him he might not be like the one you should put all your time in because there's other people like on the right you see there's an influencer so an influencer will probably be like a specialist an in-house specialist of that company or a lawyer who's paid for to give legal advice or consultant who was hired to optimize their processes and they will have very great influence on the actual decider the actual decider of course will be someone top management or the CEO or senior manager or whatever but they will base their decision mostly on what the others are telling them and then on top you also see there is a gatekeeper now gatekeepers this can be very tricky these will people maybe people who are a bit skeptical who will have major homework they will know about you they will know what they're looking for then have a whole list of criteria that your two will have to live up to and if it doesn't then they will just build a plug and they'll say to decide right now we're not going with these people no we don't need another tool there's no solution need it BAM so it can very well be that you think that you're talking to someone who has the most influence and you see that as like this one person who's in every email and CC and they never say anything so keep your eyes open for that because they might have a very big influence and they might be people you have to convince really so then the decider speaks for himself he's he's of course the one making decision based on what the others tell him the buyer that will be also one of the people you'll be negotiating with about prices because he's like office manager for instance who's was there for purchasing that's his job so he'll be someone talk to but he will probably want discuss about the the real content of your tool and then lastly there's the users of course the ones they're actually going to use your product well these people are especially important for the later phase of the promotion of your reputation and for your support or client surface applied support service all right let's maybe put this in a simple example suppose this is your products your solution you're selling a shield and you want to sell it to a tribe to this guy I've been very friends about this so and this guy is the one you want to convince because he'll be he'll be buying it he'll be he'll be actually spending the money so who will be the initiator - probably won't be one of these two guys because this they'll be like oh damn this thing is floating apart this guy's going to fall down on the knees so we need a new vanity new shields like ASAP in this case the initiator will probably be the same guy as the user or one of his colleagues because he's he'll be the one there carrying it the influencer I think you all know who that will be any IDs right panoramix of course because he's the most trusted advisors so this this is the one he's going to trust it was a pleasure colleagues is going to trust Bernardo mix with with advice then the gatekeepers so as I as I told you the gatekeeper is going to have like a very skeptic look at things and be like well do we really need this shouldn't be spending on something else and that would of course be Bellefleur so she'll be like no he has shields enough I want more money to buy clothes or something so very sexist but that's say let's Vil Fleur and then of course the buyer will be well the estate so it's it's it's maybe a stupid example but part of the lead qualification we're not just looking we're not just be looking at your lis tan data content but also at who you're negotiating with who do you have to convince in the team you're looking at so try to have a good clear image of that and whatever you do don't try and sell to this guy because he has some money all right finally properly to qualification will prevent you from closing bad deals so this is very important that's something that will probably happen to you in the beginning when you start selling your solution and you'll come into contact with people and you will feel that there's like a possibility you can sell your solution and you're like really worked up and excited IKEA okay they might they might sell that they might buy I should close this deal well really be careful not to sell not to oversell and not to sell to someone who's not qualified because this can turn into a really sticky situation if you sell it to someone who hasn't been qualified as a sweet spot lead and ever you sell it to someone of whom you should have known that they will never use the your solution as it was intended then you can come into situations like this they will need a lot of support because they have all the wrong expectations they will become very frustrated because these expectations aren't met they will start asking for refunds and they can cause incredible damage to company's reputation so you're also starters bad reputation is really not a good idea to start off with because these people will start ventilating their frustration on your Facebook page on your Twitter account they will start talking very negatively about you on business events and networking events so if you qualify well then you will never get a disgruntled customer of course I'm not saying it's impossible but just it will it will filter them out and you will you will get out of the way of these problems finally properly qualification will prevent you from running into bad surprises during your sales process this is a situation that you've probably already seen or experienced or that you might experience in the future if you start off selling and I really had this a lot of times so you've qualified someone or you think you've qualified them and then you start pitching your solution you start telling them about your product and everything is going well and they seem very interested and they give you all the right impulses and they ask the right questions and then at the enter like okay sounds cool but I'll get back at you and you're like okay if you need some more days to think it over and a problem we'll hear each other okay it's fine and then you start talking about this to your family or your colleagues like yeah I'm gonna close a big deal and then suddenly they ask you like one week later so how about that deal and you're like yeah it didn't really go through at the end they didn't really need it or they didn't have the money or they didn't have the power of decision or did they used to they're going to keep using the wrong tool they're also a solution that they have now that's something that should never be possible the person qualification you will know how the process is going to be you will have an idea of the size of the deal like how many of you how many what quantity of your product are you going to sell them and what this chance of success are they like maybe or they're like really for sure that they're gonna buy and the timeframe so when are they gonna do it because it often happens that they are already looking for a solution but they only won't have it for next year that's very much possible but you should know that because it will have a huge impact on the efforts and time you will you will invest in these people that's also why I put her on the bottom always keep so suppose you just pitched your your product or your solution to someone let's say it's a lot this entrepreneur or something and they say okay that's cool we'll get back at you and it's like just have to have them decide on a proper day just say like okay if I haven't heard from you and four days I will call you up and I will follow up because that that way they know it will be in the back of their heads and they won't just push it off it's very important that you do this if you don't you will lose control of the sales process and you will start I don't know if wasting a lot of time on people again that weren't weren't really interest in the first place so often the way often saying I will get back at you it's just a way of saying no thanks if you can already have the no tanks at the beginning let me save you a lot of time right then let's now have a look at how you can ask the right questions not only for lead qualification but something that will help you in the rest of your sales process as well first of all and this is part of lead qualification you should know if the lead you're going to be talking to as if you're going to be solution selling or insight selling so what's the difference between the two if you're solution selling then you're going to be coping with an organization that already has a clear idea of what they're lacking they know they have identified the problem and they've come looking for a solution so these will be sweet spot clients that have sought out you they have visited your website they have asked you a question on your Twitter or - through email so these people will already have identified a problem if it's just inside saying then you know that it's a sweet spot client you know about them you haven't you know haven't been in contact yet and you know that they probably don't realize that they have a problem yet or that you can help them so that will be a completely different approach because this will be outbound while solution selling will be more inbound what sort of initial information to gather so this is really qualification so solution selling what need are they specifically looking for whether it is saying themselves or what unrecognised need does the customer have so then again is looking are they sweet spot clients I have they already figured it out themselves or do they need a little push in the back when to engage of course you have to engage at different times for solution selling they'll come to you it'll be easy for insight selling you have to try and find a way to to attract them or talk to them that's the same way beginning the conversation it will be easier to find a hook if they already know there's a problem then when they haven't figured it out yet and then you have just provoke them challenge them into telling that there is indeed a problem and that your solution might be something for them then the flow of information will of course be different as well this is called spin so this is a method that's being used worldwide we're using in a team leader as well it's about asking the right questions in the sales situation spin stands for situation problem implication and needs this goes beyond peer qualification this is like more all of the of the selling process so first of all situation so the aim of situation questions during your first talk to a customer will be to find out all the relevant information about the current situation of our contacts of the leads so this is purely qualification this will be asking them how many people they are and what what tool they are currently using what their business is about pure qualification but these are the least powerful of spen questions because they don't serve the client the client won't really see that there's a link between all these things you're asking him and his problem and he needs to he needs being addressed so don't overdo it a lot of these information a lot of this information that you gather from these questions will be things that you have already could already find online you could have made like a profile of them if you know there's a sweet they are a sweet spot then you know that okay they'll be working like this and this will be their problem and this will be the situation so don't overdo it because it will chase away the customer a little that's why the tip is do your homework and qualify like go on their website check their numbers things like that secondly problem so here you will ask questions that will make the delete identify the problems themselves like any problems or difficulties or discontent that they experience during the processes will be explained here by the things that you make him say himself so these are way more powerful the situations questions because once they express their own problems and they will like realize more like okay I really have a problem here should I should address it these are a bit more difficult of courtesy than situation questions but you will learn in time especially since they are your sweet spot clients and you've developed a solution for them you will know what the problem will be so you will like kind of aim your aim your questions in that direction this could be like so do you think that there is a problem with the tool you're using now do you think that the productivity of your of your workforce isn't isn't high enough things like that and then they will start talking and that's very more interesting for them than to be talking about all the other just situation and contacts that's not as interesting but again here do your homework qualify you know what questions to ask if there is sweet spot client because you've created a solution for them to to address these problems after this you can go straight on with implication questions so here you will ask questions that will emphasize the consequences and the implications of the problems that you identified or you have them identify previously so these are very powerful because here they will actually say that oh my god because of my unreliable tool that I'm using now I'm actually losing productivity once they say that they were really convinced that okay I need a solution so they will realize that their business is being affected by the problems and problems that you can solve because that's why you're talking to him so this will be a bit more tricky to come up with but again know who you're talking to qualify them as sweet spots and then you'll learn by doing you'll know what to ask you'll feel it finally the neat here will be clearly presenting the value and advantages of your solution and you'll have them saying it you'll be asking thing like so if you had a tool that could help you with this wouldn't that be better or what do you really expect from a tool to to help you with what would be a solution to your problem and since you already know that these are sweet spot clients they will tell you oh I need a B and C and these will be three things that are actually in your solution and you can just say oh yeah we have that yep we have that obey the school yeah okay and they'll be like convincing themselves that they need your tool so these are very very powerful questions because you have them tell them what did what they want to hear learn a final prototype best salesman way to introduce your solution till the end of the of the of the sales pitch so they'll be first having the lead to a lot of talking especially about the problems really nagging actually and then they will introduce their their solution only at the end maybe it's almost the end but maybe I can give some examples of where I made some mistakes in the past qualifying about the keep control thing and being aware of what account you're going to sell or the the amount of the deal there was a guy and Brussels we're in Ghent so that's like an hour away because it's the other way the other side of Brussels and I thought it was going to be like a massive deal so I told my colleague jean-marc you have to go there you have to go there this guy is going to be huge and he goes there and apparently was just a plumber and this guy didn't buy that much it was just like the smallest account I could sell so that was like half of the lost of for someone who could have spent this time way more interestingly then the the need of qualification and control was also illustrated by something that happened only last week we were in the sales meeting and all of a sudden one of my colleagues comes in and they're like yeah there's someone here at the lobby and they're here for the webinar I'm like for the webinar but you guys know what the webinar has been and it's it's online it's a demonstration online so this person hadn't listed online but she was like oh yeah have to go there so she came in half an hour after the webinar had already started but we don't even give those webinars to someone else it gives them but she comes in she's like a alright like do realize that's online she's like oops okay but can you give it to me anyway and like okay let's let's go and talk so I gave her a demonstration of team leader but right from the beginning I mean she had a bar and there's nothing wrong with bars but you don't really use her tool for a bar I mean I would love to sell it to everyone here who has a bar but that would be bad deals I mean these people be like hey I can't put my whiskey in these invoices what's wrong with this so I spent like an hour and a half it is lady and trying to explain to have it not to buy her tool it was not very productive is me of me and then the last one this was again the plumber and he was from south of Belgium so as a of fun a very very nice guy but he was partly Italian so his French wasn't that good that my French isn't that good either so you could see that was already kind of difficult and he really couldn't work out computers so I gave him a demonstration over an hour and a half and normally these things only take half that much and I was starting to him and then the day after he was very enthusiastic oh yeah yeah I couldn't make my my offers like this I mean brushes I got okay that's cool and then the day after he calls again I have to give another demonstration how to do that and then he's like okay well I'm going to buy your product I'm like oh yeah okay a new client but first and it isn't voice to be perfect so I'm going to send you the invoice no London first was an offer Davi I'm going to sent you this this offer and could you just like check it for all the spelling is okay and then send it back to me and like okay well if you're going to buy why not so I spent like 10 minutes I don't know what what's wrong with French people but they speak their language very well but the writing isn't always like the difference between is it and Waxhaw it really doesn't matter at least not for this guy and so he spent like a lot of time taking all out of the spelling mistakes and the end he was very happy and then he was like yeah I'll talk to my bookkeeper if I can really afford your - I'm like I should have known this I should've known this I spent six hours this guy oh no I didn't hear from him from him anymore oh that's a good thing because if this guy would have become a client ever been disaster and my customers success colleagues would have killed me so be sure in the to close bad deals and qualify alright thank you very much that was it