Qualifying

Mike Montague interviews Brian Jackson on How to Succeed at Your 30 Second Commercial. Brian is an award-winning Sandler Trainer in San Diego, CA.

One of Sandler’s critical selling rules – “Don’t spill your candy in the lobby” – can sound a little confusing to someone who is unfamiliar with the Sandler Selling System® methodology. What does a spilled box of candy have to do with a sales call? Everything.

Troy Elmore, Sandler trainer, shows you how to succeed with the attitudes, behaviors, and techniques needed to be more successful at dealing with the competition and selling a crowded marketplace. Get the best practices collected from around the world.

Listen Time: 21 Minutes

Mark’s sales manager, Irene, asked him to forecast the number of sales he would close over the coming month. Mark came up with his best guess. Unfortunately, Irene didn’t find his best guess very helpful. As it happened, the new monthly forecast was identical to Mark’s previous month’s “best guess” – a figure he had failed to come close to reaching

Sam was surprised when his boss, Juanita, called him into her office, closed the door, sat him down, and asked him: “So what is it you guys do?”

This was not the question Sam expected to hear from his sales manager that morning. He was expecting Juanita to start grilling him about his quarterly numbers, which were not anywhere near where he wanted them to be. But when Juanita repeated her question – “I’m serious, what do you guys do?” – he knew he had to take the request seriously. But he still wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

Having a big pipeline of “prospects” is typically seen as desirable. The more prospects you put into the pipeline, the more will eventually emerge as customers. At least that’s the theory. And the theory is partially true. Some of the people you put in the pipeline will become customers. The question is, “How many will be customers and how long will it take for them to materialize from the other end of the pipe?”

Jane was struggling. Most of her deals weren’t moving forward, and her quarterly income target seemed well out of reach.

Many salespeople feel uncomfortable discussing money issues with prospects and clients. It's important to understand that talking about money—fees, price, terms, etc.— is an integral part of selling. This discussion must take place before considering a presentation.

Have you ever been giving a presentation to notice that the prospect had tuned you out? Prehaps you should stop and take their "temperature" to determine if you're on track or if they have already make a decision one way or the other.

If prospects use terms such as “looking into,” “thinking about,” “considering,” and “exploring," they are probably not a prospect. Time to move on!

All too often, we lose a customer to the competition because we decide to share loads of information before we’ve identified the prospective buyer’s emotional motivations. We don’t uncover the pain the prospect is trying to eliminate.

When you apply a reversing strategy, prospects will reword or expand their question to reveal the motive behind it.

Prospects will sometimes make statements that, on the surface, sound positive, but on closer inspection, reveal no actual commitment. They contain indecisive, play-it-safe words or phrases that allow prospects (and customers alike) to avoid making commitments.

At Sandler Training, we believe in not solely talking about features and benefits during your sales call, but rather focusing on the prospect’s needs. However, there is a time for presenting, once you have qualified the opportunity. Once a prospect is fully qualified in Pain, Budget, and Decision, then it is time for you to make the presentation, and you want to make that presentation as persuasive as possible.

Transactional Analysis (TA) in psychology, defines three ego states that influence our behavior—the Parent, the Adult, and the Child. It’s the prospect’s Child that starts the buying process.

If your goal is to find more prospects, get more and better referrals, and make more commission dollars in 2016 than you did in 2015, consider upping your social selling game. Here are four quick tips that will help you to avoid some common mistakes online.

Hopes and dreams (not to mention time, energy, and money) vanish in an instant. Of course, that would never have happened. Why?

Ask salespeople to list their least favorite selling activities, and you can count on “prospecting” being at the top of the list. And, the least favorite of all prospecting activities is unquestionably making cold calls.

Before you begin working up designs, proposals, or anything that requires an investment of your time, you must discuss exactly what the prospect wants. Confirm that the investment they are prepared to make is indeed within the range you charge. 

Creating an effective sales pipeline can be a massive headache for sales leaders because reps have been known to stuff the pipeline with opportunities that have zero chance of closing. In a previous life, I took over a product specialist role selling a web-based media monitoring and crisis communications program. My first six weeks in that role was spent culling a $3 million pipeline down to $160,000 of real, qualified opportunities

Does this sound familiar to you? Prospect A says, "This looks very good. I think there's an excellent chance we'll do business." The salesperson thinks, "I've got one." Prospect B comments, "Your price is higher than we expected." The salesperson thinks, "I'll have to cut the price to close the deal." Prospect C reveals, "We were hoping for a shorter delivery time." The salesperson thinks, "I'll have to push this through as a rush order to get the sale."e