You can appreciate how dire the problem is when you realize
that most opportunities end up with no action rather than a win or loss. By the
time you figure out the deal is dead, you have expanded considerable resources
that could have been used to work better-qualified prospects. As one successful
VP of Sales said to me: “I don’t mind losing a deal, but I want to lose quickly!”
Always Be Qualifying
How do you avoid this situation? It goes back to the basics
of qualifying the prospect. The “Always Be Closing” mantra is out; “Always Be Qualifying”
is the new paradigm for success.
I have never been a fan of the BANT approach
(Budget, Authority, Need, Time). I think it is too generic and I believe the
budget question is out of place in most situations until the value of the solution
has been proven.
With that said, I think the ONE question that can help
you qualify the opportunity is the timing question. But how you ask the
question and how you react to the answer will vary based on the type of
solution you sell.
If your solution is in a well-known (post-chasm) category:
For a mature solution category, you definitely want
to look for a decision timeframe. If a timeframe has been defined, it means a
buying process has been initiated by the buyer. Even if the budget is not yet allocated,
the need and the authority are likely well-defined, which should make the sale
easier to navigate. If the timing has not been defined, you should continue
nurturing the prospect through marketing activities, but you probably don’t want
to expand valuable sales resources.
If your solution is in a new (pre-chasm) category:
For a new solution category, you are probably not
going to see a defined purchase timeframe. This is going to be a
seller-initiated process, which is by far more challenging.
Since the issue is not yet on the agenda, you would have to
go high enough in the organization to force a change of priorities. Once you
get there, you’d have to prove there is a real need that your solution can satisfy.
Figuring out the need and getting access to authority
require a considerable investment, so you would need to allocate your resources
wisely. That’s where the timing question comes to play. It can help you prioritize
which prospects may justify the investment.
The tricky part: how do you define timing for a new solution
category?
In most cases, you will not find a predefined timeline for the
purchase of a new solution category. Instead, you need to identify a compelling
event that would serve as a catalyst for the buyer to take action (e.g., moving
to a virtualized environment, launching a new product, expanding to a new
territory). Once you identified the compelling event, you need to find out when
this event will take place.
One way or the other, the timing question is THE key to
qualification.
That’s why regardless of what you sell, the most important
question you can ask in order to qualify your prospects is the timing question—whether
it’s the decision timeframe for a mature solution or the timing of the
compelling event for a new solution.
Happy qualifying!
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