销售资格的最终指南

这discovery call is one of the most important conversations a salesperson can have with a potential customer.

这是您和您的潜在客户道路上的众所周知的叉子 - 它们非常适合您的产品或服务，可以保证讨论下一步，或者是时候分开。

But making that call is easier said than done. That’s where sales qualification comes in.

By asking the right questions, you’ll be able to determine whether the relationship should continue and the appropriate next steps to take if a deal is ultimately viable. This guide will walk you through the fundamentals of sales qualification, present the different frameworks you can use, and provide pointers on disqualification and conversational tip-offs to listen for.

如果没有销售资格，您可能每天都会与数百个潜在客户交谈 - 只需完成一两个封闭式优惠即可为您提供所有努力。这是任何成功的销售过程的重要组成部分，但是为什么如此关键？让我们来看看。

Why is sales qualification important?

Simply put, sales qualification is important to sales organizations because it significantly improves close ratios. Without sales qualification, you risk pursuing leads who aren’t a good fit for the product due to budgetary constraints, organizational challenges, or other factors.

销售资格只是一种更好的销售方式。它使您可以追求最有可能购买产品的潜在客户，从而节省时间和精力。

Here are more reasons sales qualification is so important:

• 当领先优势没有资格时，您可以继续前进，并花更多的时间在潜在的潜在客户身上。
• You can focus on a smaller, specific segment of buyers, which can help you deliver a more personalized selling experience.
• You can learn the ins and outs of the buyer’s challenges and deliver a better solution as a result.
• 您可以保证您的大多数活动会导致收入积极影响。
• 您可以为不同的垂直行业创建不同的销售资格流程，并保留仍然感到个性化的音调列表。

假设您试图将产品出售给您尚未获得资格的潜在客户。如果产品合适的产品很差，则客户可能会退还该产品以退款或进行社交媒体TIRADE。

通过有意通过discovery call, you can deliver a highly tailored solution that improves post-purchase satisfaction.

整体上，销售资格流程是什么样的？让我们在下面漫步。

Lead Qualification Process

这lead qualification process begins with a pool of leads that have been generated by your marketing, sales, acquisition, and product teams. If you work at a smaller team, this pool of leads may come from website form submissions and may not have a specific designation.

在销售组织中，有几种类型的潜在客户：

• 不合格的潜在客户: Unqualified leads haven’t been nurtured enough in theflywheel转发给销售团队。
• Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)：MQLS是适合接收营销传播的线索，例如电子邮件活动，内容报价等。
• 销售合格的潜在客户（SQLS）: SQLs are leads who are ready to connect with a sales rep and begin the sales process.
• Product Qualified Leads (PQLs)：PQLS通过开始免费增值或注册免费试验来表明对产品具有浓厚的兴趣。
• Conversion Qualified Leads (CQLs): A CQL is any lead who has converted on your website, either by submitting a form or by pressing a click-to-call button.

然后将这些线索送入铅资格框架，然后您可以在其中询问一系列qualifying questions发现他们是否好或糟糕的产品-fit.

From there, the leads are divided into qualified and disqualified leads. The qualified leads are then fed into the sales process. Disqualified leads are fed into a nurturing sequence, where they’ll ideally warm up to the product and make a purchase later down the line.

Let's take a look at three of the most crucial aspects of the lead qualification process: qualifying questions, qualified prospects, and frameworks you can use to qualify leads.

什么是合格的问题？

一个合格的问题有助于销售人员确定其前景适合一个标准。可能需要，预算，权威，紧迫感或另一个因素。

一个好的资格问题通常是开放式的。问一个封闭的问题，例如"Is this a priority right now?"将买家的答案盒子盒子。更好的版本将是”Where does this fall on your list of business priorities?"因为您没有带领前景取得答案，所以回应通常会更诚实和揭示。

这是一些良好的合格问题：

• What business challenge can this product help you solve?

• 是什么阻止您到目前为止尝试解决问题？

• 这个项目的预算是什么样的？

• Are you using any solutions to solve this problem? If so, why are you switching?

• 在解决此问题方面，您的主要优先事项是什么？哪种功能最重要？

• 使用此产品后，您公司的成功是什么样的？bob全站app

• Would you be the daily user of the product? Who in your team would use this product on the daily?

• What are some points of friction in your day-to-day that you feel this product can help you streamline?

• 哪些决策者将参与购买该产品？

• 如果我跟进mm/dd/yyyy，没事吗？

这些问题的答案将导致您有资格或取消资格的潜在客户资格。

What is a qualified prospect?

合格的潜在客户已经完成了领先的资格过程，现在准备进入销售管道。

通常，您通常会在发现电话期间进行大部分资格，但这当然不是资格开始或结束的地方。在销售过程的每个步骤中，您都会不断评估潜在客户的特定特征。

销售量reps must qualify prospects at three different levels — "organization-level," "opportunity-level," and "stakeholder-level" qualification.

Organization-Level Prospect Qualification

This is the most basic level of qualification, and doesn’t tell you much other than whether you should do more research. If your company has buyer personas, reference them when qualifying a prospect. Does the buyer match the demographics of a given persona?

Questions you should ask at this stage include:

• 您的领土前景吗？

• Do you sell to their industry?

• What’s the company size?

• Does the account fit your company’s buyer persona?

Opportunity-Level Prospect Qualification

This form of qualification is probably what you thought of when you read the title of this post. Opportunity-level sales qualification is where you determine whether your prospect has a specific need or challenge you can satisfy and whether it’s feasible for them to implement your particular product or service. The other half of a good buyer persona, opportunity-level characteristics give insight into whether a prospect could benefit from your offering.

要确定您的潜在客户是否有资格在机会层面上，请询问以下内容：

• 潜在客户是否熟悉您出售的产品类型？

• 他们是否面临您的产品可以帮助他们解决的挑战？

• Do they have a team or a person who’ll be using the product?

利益相关者级别的潜在客户资格

Let’s say you’ve determined that your prospect’s company is a good match for your solution and fits your ideal buyer persona. It’s time to get into the nitty-gritty — can your point of contact actually pull the trigger on a purchase decision?

To determine this, ask your prospect the following questions:

• 这将会购买你的预算出来的吗?

• 还有谁参与了决定？

• Do you have criteria for this purchase decision? Who defined them?

什么时候取消前景的资格

这se three levels are listed in the order you should use them to disqualify.

For instance, if your prospect is a complete departure from your company’s buyer persona, it’s safe to disqualify them right then and there on an organizational level. Maybe one day, you’ll serve their type of buyer, but right now you don’t — so don’t waste time trying to shoehorn your offering into their business.

Similarly, you could be speaking with the CEO of an organization with complete budget authority who passes stakeholder-level qualification with flying colors. But if there’s no problem, there’s no need for your solution. Qualify for business pain first.

Also, keep in mind that unless a prospect can be qualified on all three levels, you shouldn’t advance them in the sales process. For example, if you ask your prospect about the company’s strategic goals and they’re unable to answer, it’s a good sign they’re not close enough to the decision process and lack influence.

即使他们在机会层面上，您也应该在利益相关者层面上取消此联系的资格。

Why Disqualifying Isn’t a Bad Thing

许多销售人员不愿取消前景并收缩管道。

他们的自然本能正在尝试尽可能多地工作，但这不是最好的方法。线索的质量比数量更重要。

As a salesperson, your most precious asset is your time, and it’s far better to spend it on a handful of your best prospects than spreading yourself thin across dozens of leads. Trying to close every deal that comes along is only going to result in dead ends with poor fit prospects, while you neglect prospects likely to buy.

了until now, we’ve discussed qualifying questions and what a qualified prospect looks like. You can organize all of the processes we’ve discussed thus far using领先资格框架。

如何符合线索的资格with Lead Qualification Frameworks

资格框架本质上是销售人员可以用来确定潜在客户是否可能成为成功客户的标题。

Every customer and every sale is different, but all closed-won deals share commonalities. Sales qualification frameworks distill those shared characteristics into general traits reps can look for when qualifying.

BANT资格框架

这Old Faithful of sales qualification frameworks, BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) is used at a variety of companies and in a variety of markets.

Bant最初由IBM开发，涵盖了机会和利益相关者级别的资格。

BANT seeks to uncover the following four pieces of information:

• 预算：潜在客户有能力购买吗？
• 权威：您的联系人是否有足够的授权在购买时签字？
• 需要: Does the prospect have a business pain you can solve?
• 时间线: When is the prospect planning to buy?

以下是在潜在对话的背景下进行的一些bant问题的例子：

尽管Bant满足了许多机会级别的要求，但它错过了其他机会。

这“ultimate” buying authority could be more than one person. Make sure you engage all relevant stakeholders early on in the process and secure each individual’s buy-in.

“Timeline” is another area where BANT falls short today. A strict BANT qualification might tell you to cycle a lead who won’t be ready to buy until next year into a closed-lost queue.

但是您可能会过早地行动 - 发送教育资源并提供帮助，直到他们准备购买为止。bob体育苹果系统下载安装

meddic

MEDDIC（指标，经济购买者，决策标准，决策过程，确定痛苦，冠军）was pioneered by Jack Napoli when he was at technology company PTC. MEDDIC requires sales reps to understand every aspect of a target company's purchase process, down to whether you have an internal champion — an employee at a prospective company who will internally sell your product.

Meddic对于提高预测准确性非常有价值，这对于向企业公司出售的公司至关重要的是，毕竟，只需损失一笔交易，当每个交易价值几百万美元时，可能会使人衰弱。

HubSpot首席执行官Brian Halligan说：“从0美元到1亿美元，PTC取得了成功，因为我们售出了一个更好的小部件。”“从1亿美元到10亿美元，我们出售了技术的转变。Meddic变得很重要，因为它不仅是任何旧购买，而且是业务的转变。”

You should consider using MEDDIC as a qualification framework if your company sells a product that requires a transformation in behavior or average sales price is incredibly high, as understanding exactly how a prospect buys, why they would buy, and who's championing you internally is crucial to maintaining an accurate pipeline.

CHAMP Sales

CHAMP (Challenges, Authority, Money, and Prioritization) is similar to ANUM but places Challenges ahead of Authority.

CHAMP also defines authority as a “call-to-action,” not a roadblock. If your initial contact is a low-level employee, you can safely assume they won’t be the decision-maker. That doesn’t mean you should hang up the phone. Instead, ask questions that help you map the company’s organizational hierarchy to determine who to reach out to next.

GPCTBA/C&I

Yes, it’s a long acronym, but a useful one. Developed at HubSpot, the qualification framework GPCTBA/C&I (Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline, Budget, Authority/Negative Consequences and Positive Implications) is a response to changes in buyer behavior. Buyers come to the sales process increasingly informed, so salespeople need to add value on top of product knowledge.

But value isn’t something sales reps can just "add" — to truly act as an advisor, you must explore beyond the scope of the discrete problem that your product or service could solve. This means understanding a prospect’s strategic goals, their company’s business model, and how the specific issue you’re discussing fits into the larger picture of their professional life.

以下是您在每个步骤中都应提出的一些问题：

Goals

以下问题的目的是找出潜在客户的定量目标。如果他们的响应没有明确定义，您可以帮助澄清或设定目标。

• 您今年的首要任务是什么？

• 您有特定的公司目标吗？bob全站app

• 您是否已经发布了本季度/年的收入目标？

计划

一旦您了解了前景的目标，请找出他们已经做了什么工作来实现目标。确定有效的方法和无效的方法，并提出改进的建议。

• 您打算如何实现自己的目标？

• 你去年做了什么？什么有效，没有什么作用？您今年要做什么？

• 您认为XYZ可能很难实施您的计划吗？

• Do you have the right resources available to implement this plan?

挑战

Defining your prospect’s challenges — and reinforcing that what they’ve already tried isn’t working — is crucial. Unless they understand that they need help, a prospect won’t become a customer.

• 您为什么认为即使您过去尝试过并且仍在处理它，您现在还可以消除这一挑战？

• Do you think you have the internal expertise to deal with these challenges?

• If you realize early enough in the year that this plan isn’t fixing this challenge, how will you shift gears?

时间线

您最重要的资产是您的时间。因此，尽管不想现在或在不久的将来购买的潜在客户不一定是一个丢失的原因，但他们应该沿着您的优先级列表移动。

• 您什么时候开始实施此计划？

• Do you have bandwidth and resources to implement this plan now?

• 您是否想帮助您仔细考虑执行该计划的步骤，以便您可以弄清楚何时应该实施每件作品？

预算

Just asking"What’s your budget?"HubSpot销售总监Dan Tire表示，这不是一个可能使您有价值的见解的问题。

相反，尝试问：

• 我们是否同意[产品或服务]的潜在投资回报率？

• Are you spending money on another product to solve the problem we’ve discussed?

然后，进去杀人。Databox首席执行官和前HubSpot销售副总裁Pete Caputa建议以这种方式对预算问题进行措辞：

“我们已经确定您的目标是X，并且您现在花了Y来尝试实现X。但是它不起作用。为了雇用我们，您需要投资Z。由于Z与Y和您更有信心我们的解决方案将使您达到目标，您认为投资Z雇用我们是有意义的吗？”

权威

Unlike in BANT, qualifying for authority under this framework isn’t necessarily trying to determine whether your contact is a decision-maker. Your contact might be an influencer or a coach, two types of internal champions who can give you insight into the decision-maker’s thought process.

如果您的联系不是经济买家，请问他们：

• 我们讨论的目标对经济买家重要吗？

• Amongst their priorities, where does this fall?

• What concerns do you anticipate they’ll raise?

• How should we go about getting the economic buyer on board?

负面后果和积极影响

在资格过程的这一部分中，您会发现如果您的潜在客户能够或未实现其目标，会发生什么。

“If your product can significantly help them avoid consequences and further aid in achieving even bigger follow-up goals, you’ve got a very strong value proposition,” Caputa says.

这里有一些C＆I询问潜在客户的问题：

• 如果您达到目标，会发生什么？结果会在个人层面上影响您吗？

• 当您克服这一挑战时，下一步该怎么办？

• 如果您可以达到目标，您是否可以得到促进或获得更多资源？bob体育苹果系统下载安装如果不这样做，您会失去责任还是被降职？

这benefit of GPCTBA/C&I is that it allows salespeople to gather a huge amount of information. If your product is complex, highly differentiated, and stands to become an integral part of your prospect’s business strategy, having these insights is incredibly valuable. Sales reps selling these kinds of products need to step into their prospects’ world to be effective advisors and business partners.

However, GPCTBA/C&I might not be right for every sales force. Depending on what you sell, such thorough qualification may not be necessary.

ANUM

ANUM (Authority, Need, Urgency, Money) is an alternative spin on BANT. When qualifying using ANUM, a sales rep’s first priority should be to determine whether they’re speaking with a decision-maker.

需要以与Bant相同的方式功能，但优先级。紧迫性与时机相关，而金钱取代了预算。

头晕的

这雨组advocates using FAINT (Funds, Authority, Interest, Need, Timing) to qualify sales leads. FAINT is designed to reflect the fact that many purchase decisions are unplanned and thus won’t be associated with a set budget.

像阿努姆（Anum）一样，不管是否搁置了离散的预算，使用淡淡的代表应该寻找具有购买能力的组织。淡淡的还增加了兴趣。

根据Rain Group的John Doerr和Mike Schultz的说法，兴趣被定义为“从买家那里学习可能的东西，以及如何实现与今天的现实相比，这是一种新的和更好的现实。”

销售量Qualifying: Good Signs and Red Flags

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: "It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it."

This phrase is the root of countless arguments, but it’s as good as gold when it comes to sales qualification. Your prospect will provide you as much information via their tone of voice and delivery as the words they actually speak.

Here are some tip-offs (both good and bad) to listen for when qualifying a prospect that can help you determine whether to advance the sales process or disqualify ASAP.

Good Signs to Move a Prospect Forward

Excuses

等待。借口怎么可能是一件好事？

Excuses help resolve our actions with who we want to be. During a sales conversation, your ears should perk up if your prospect tries to explain away previous inaction regarding business pain. This indicates one of two things: either the excuse is legitimate, or your prospect wishes they had done something about it earlier and is trying to rationalize why they didn’t. Either way, it confirms their pain is real.

特异性

可以为问题提供具体答案的潜在客户“你的目标是什么？”和"When do you need to see results?"仔细考虑他们的问题。聆听顺序计划，思考解释和统计数据。细节还表明您的前景会感到真正的痛苦。毕竟，没有真正问题的人不会花时间思考为什么存在以及如何解决问题。

Of course, the caveat is that specifics must be accompanied by reality. A prospect who says,“我想在接下来的两周内获得四倍的收入，”is using specifics to demonstrate that they don’t have strong business acumen.

Knowledge

特殊性的伴侣是知识。知识检查是您在利益相关者级别排位赛的最佳选择。真正的决策者将对公司目标，挑战和需求有深入的了解。bob全站app无法访问此信息的联系人在销售过程中可能不会有价值。

销售过程中的危险信号

Inconsistency

一个彼此矛盾的潜在客户可能是一个想提供帮助的人，但不能因为他们没有足够的知识。但是，这并不是一个破坏交易的人 - 让他们告诉您谁确实知道答案，并继续通过另一个联系来使机会资格。

Short answers

真正的商业痛苦使组织渗透 - 高管失去睡眠，员工必须每天处理它。如果您给人的印象是您可以帮助减轻痛苦，那么前景会想与您交谈。

一个给您一个单词答案的潜在客户不是一个觉得有对话的基础的人。问题可能是一个非问题，或者联系不足以感觉到其严重性。取决于您认为正在发生的事情，取消资格或尝试与组织的其他成员接触。

Over to You

销售成功取决于有效的资格。您找到合适的前景的能力将创造或破坏您的业务。变成快乐客户的前景不仅意味着收入，而且意味着口碑，推荐以及交叉或销售的可能性。因此，您必须做对了。

编者注：该帖子最初于2015年9月发表，并已更新以进行全面性。