Consistent qualification is a struggle for many sales organizations. Sales teams too focused on the current forecast, inconsistency on the definition of qualified, a lack of appropriate coaching all can contribute to deals in the forecast that will never close.
It’s easy to let the ball drop on qualification because it’s one of those sales fundamentals that we may lose sight of when we’re looking at a big opportunity or a large new logo. It is almost impossible to grow or even hit your numbers repeatedly without it. As as a sales leader, you need to ensure that your reps are answering key questions on every deal.1. Do we belong in this deal?
Is this deal a good fit for our solution? Should we pursue this opportunity? Salespeople who work for companies without clear qualification processes can often hold on to opportunities too long, hoping they’ll be able to turn the deal around. The more time your reps spend trying to turn around bad deals is valuable time that they're not spending on qualifying better opportunities. If they don't have a way to justify pursuit of the deal, then they can't be efficient with their selling time.
2. Where is the deal strong for us? Where is it weak and for what reasons?
If you want to be able to pull a deal through from opportunity to close, you need to know the gaps and where you need to tighten up "loose information". Your reps need to be able to clearly articulate to their managers and account teams areas where the deal is at risk and where they could be more buttoned up. In addition, your managers need to have the ability to find the gaps in any deal provide the coaching necessary that enables account teams to fill those gaps.
3. What actions will move the deal forward more efficiently and effectively?
Knowing the gaps is one thing. Coaching their team members is another. Ensure your managers are providing the how when it comes to strengthening the weaknesses of any opportunity. Your managers and your account teams should be able to prescribe and execute the areas needed to move the deal forward. If they can't, you have a qualification problem that you need to improve within your organization.
If you believe in the concept of your salespeople territory as their own business, there's nothing more important for a seller to do in terms of running their business. They have to predict and understand where the revenue is coming from for their business.
Having this problem in one deal creates one problem – you have a deal problem. Having this problem across your sales team creates a consistent problem. You can't depend on the number. You have an organization internally that can’t count on what the sales team is saying on the quality of the pipeline. It creates issues for manufacturing, delivery and operations, the finance organization, and the entire company. If you’re publicly traded, there is a devastating snowball effect. Do the work necessary to ensure your sales team knows how to effectively qualify every deal, every time. It starts with answering those three questions.
