HOW TO QUALIFY B2B LEADS

PROBLEM GOOD NEWS –Your marketing communications programs are working and producing many inquiries. BAD NEWS –Inquiries are not leads and the sales group want only qualified and ready- to-buy sales opportunities.

THREE STEP SYSTEM Here’s the three step system we recommend –Inquiry Screening –Lead Qualification –Sales Opportunity Development

INQUIRY SCREENING The objective of the inquiry screening process is to identify – without even talking to the inquirer – which inquiries appear to be the best.

LEAD QUALIFICATION The objective of lead qualification is to qualify as many inquiries as possible into leads without losing any.

Lead Qualification There are four traditional criteria used to qualify leads –Need for the product/service –Timing of the need and/or decision –Budget available to spend –Authority of the individual(s) to make a decision

SALES OPPORTUNITY DEVELOPMENT The objective of sale opportunity development is to create more “ready to buy” potential accounts for immediate sales contact.

Sales Opportunity Development Not all leads are ready to be handed off to a sales resource even though they may well be “qualified”. A qualified lead means that the prospect is serious and capable to buy your product or service. That doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily time to send a sales person.

Summary The inquiry to sales opportunity process has the highest potential in most companies of any sales and marketing process to generate sales and marketing productivity improvements. There’s a 99% chance that you can improve this process in your company by using one or more of these suggestions.