Lead qualification is a process of seeing a customer’s purchasing potentials. This process is based on a list of qualifications of must-to-have buying criteria, such as interest and ability to purchase the product. New customers who enter the sales line are either qualified or not, it would depend on whether they would meet the criteria or not. This is also designed to slit up the potential customers from the duds. It also allows the sales reps to spend their days productive, like focusing so many efforts on the customers who are likely to have the highest or converting.
In order for the potential customer to be a qualified lead, it needs to be evaluated first. It will be difficult for the sales reps to identify where to start without the help of the structure flow, so structure flow is a must. This is a checklist of the qualifications that the potential customers must possess. It is a big help to the sales reps to do the step-to-step process, plus it is more strategic.
All in all, it is needed to be able to identify when a sales prospect is qualified and worth spending valuable time with. This skill will enable the sales reps to determine if a customer has a low or high probability of moving forward to the next step of buying the product. A sales rep will be able to see that they will prevent wasting their time with bad sales prospects. Below are the 5 good qualities of a prospect/lead that needs to be identified by a sales rep or a sales person.
1. Ability to Buy or Commit
The most obvious qualities that need to be seen from a customer, whether the customer has the money to spend in order to purchase the product or not. Sometimes, the sales rep may see if a customer may have the capacity or ability to pay, but not the desire to buy a particular product or commodity.
2. Willingness to Listen
This is typically the easiest characteristic to be recognized by a sales rep. This is where the customer tends to listen to what the sales reps have to say about the product. So, in this case, the sales rep should bear in mind that if a customer lost the willingness to listen to them then they are not worth spending the valuable precious time on
3. Timeframe
Customers are considered long-term leads if there is no set time frame under the negotiation. The customer has a set time frame to purchase the product in the near future it is called the short-term lead. As of now, businesses want short-term leads, they could see the probability of success to purchase from their products.
4. Trust the sales person, the company and the product
Good customers are those who trust and like the salesperson and the company, as well as the product. These are the good characteristics should a salesperson look to a prospective customer. When the customer provides a hint, well there would be a 100% probability of success in purchasing the product.
5. Ultimate decision-maker
A lot of customers become more emotional when it comes to the decision-making process. Thus, the sales reps must see and should identify at the early stage in the negotiation stage when a customer continues to argue, provide complaints and keep on criticizing or comparing the products to others.
As part of the sales and marketing plan, business owners and sales rep should create and expand the profile/check list of the potential customers/leads who comprise the target market of the product. Sometimes, the customers who like and choose the product are not the end-user, there might be some other prospect who does. So, when creating the customer profile it will describe the individual’s clear picture of the type of person who’s going to be served and assessed. During the process, once the customer or the prospective customer shows no interest then that is the time to stop and move to the next one.