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Refine Your Referral Strategy and Fill Your Sales Pipeline

Written by Kendra Lee

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7 Reasons Why You Must Zealously Qualify Prospects

There is a way of finding out at the beginning of a sales campaign what the probability is of winning the sale. You find out by having a sales qualification process in place and by zealously putting each and every prospect and opportunity through this sales qualification process.

Have you ever worked really hard on a sale - put in a lot of time, money and resources - and they decided to do nothing or they bought from your competitor? When you looked back you could see that if you'd asked a few more questions you could have found out at the beginning that there was a very low probability that you were going to win this sale.

Here are seven reasons why you must be zealous about putting your prospects through a qualification process before you sell to them:

1. Qualifying ensures that you only sell to people who are going to buy.

By qualifying you can determine if your prospect is going to buy and, more importantly, if they are going to buy now. By qualifying, you avoid wasting time, money and resources on selling to prospects that do nothing.

2. Qualifying tells you where to focus.

On which prospects do you spend your valuable time? Qualifying gives you that answer. By qualifying, you identify high probability opportunities and these are the ones you need to focus on.

3. Qualifying enables you to win more sales.

As a result of qualifying, you only sell to prospects that are going to buy and you only focus on high probability opportunities. Just by having this focus on high probability opportunities, you increase your probability of success, if that makes sense.

4. Qualifying speeds up your sales and results in a shorter sales cycle.

As a result of qualifying, you will find out the reason why your prospect should act now. You find out their 'compelling event.' When you find out your prospect's compelling event, they will be motivated to take action now. They will be motivated to buy your solution now rather than later and your sales cycle will be reduced as a consequence.

5. Qualifying reduces your wasted costs.

If you routinely sell to people who are not going to buy or have a low probability of buying from you, then you are wasting a lot of time money and resources. By qualifying you stop these wasted costs.

6. Qualifying enables you to choose whom you want to become your client.

Do you have a client that you wish was not your client? They require so much time and energy that they really are not worth having. Also more importantly they distract you from serving your ideal clients and from winning new business. With qualifying you will identify these non-ideal clients straight way.

7. Qualifying attracts prospects.

If you share your qualification process with your prospects, they will see that you are a professional and selective about whom you have as your client. When you become selective about who you work with, people want to be 'selected.' It's human nature. Your prospects will be trying to sell you on why you should sell to them! Even if you both agree that you are not a good fit for them right now, this process will leave them feeling impressed by you and they'll probably refer others to you.

Right now make it an unbreakable rule that you will zealously qualify prospects and you will only ever sell to qualified prospects that will be ideal customers. So find, learn and implement a sales qualification process straight away and watch the impact on your sales results.

Lately I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how to get referrals. No doubt about it, they’re one of the quickest ways to fill your pipeline. They’re definitely easier and less stressful than cold calling. They’re more accessible, and there’s less competition to close the deal. Knowing this, more and more sellers are asking for referrals as a primary approach to filling their pipelines.

But they aren’t getting the number of high quality referrals they’d like or need.

The techniques we’re hearing aren’t working consistently.

That’s because so often we leave it up to the client to guess who they should refer us to. If you really want to be successful building your pipeline with referrals, you need to take a step back and think about what types of introductions you really want.

Just any old referral won’t get you your next hot prospect.

When you leave it up to your customer to figure out who they think would be a good referral, they won’t consider all the qualification points you do.

They might not recognize that they’re a great client because they’re:

· focused on issues that fall within your offerings’ sweet spot

· using your solutions exactly like you want other customers to

· in a specific industry or a certain size company

· treating you as a trusted advisor

Suddenly you find yourself with a referral that’s less than ideal. It’s too small a company, has a completely different set of needs than you address, or is outside your industry expertise.

Because the referral came from one of your top clients, you either have to figure out how to say “thanks, but no thanks” or follow-up then explain to your customer why it wasn’t the best fit. It’s possible you could actually waste as much time following up on this unqualified introduction as you would cold calling!

A poor referral from a great client puts you in an awkward position – all because you were trying to shorten your new business development cycle through referrals. Mediocre connections won’t help you fill your pipeline.

No, you only want top quality referrals. Your desire is to get introduced to companies and contacts that really need your offerings and will want to talk with you. You’re looking for new connections with the characteristics of your best clients.

Don’t limit yourself to asking for referrals that are similar in size, industry, or region.

Broaden your expectations to seek introductions to people who’ll implement and appreciate your offerings like your best clients do. Ask for contacts who’ll want to work closely with you and welcome your expertise and recommendations.

To get referrals that fit such specific qualifications, you need to frame who is a great connection when you ask. Tell your customer what types of companies make the best match for your offerings.

There are two parts to framing your referral request.

Say, “someone like you who…” – and fill in the blank with the profile of your ideal referral.
Then add, “someone who needs …” – and include the classic challenges, issues or needs you address.

What you’re doing is creating a picture of your ideal referral for your client. Now as they mentally search through all their colleagues, they can easily determine which ones to recommend. You’ve taken the guesswork out of it.

Call me a referral snob if you will, but if we’re going to ask for referrals, spend precious time following up on them, and then work them with due diligence, don’t we deserve to get only the very best introductions? I sure think so!

Kendra Lee
		About the author:
		Kendra Lee is a top IT seller, sales advisor and business owner who knows how to shorten time to revenue in the SMB market in innovative ways. She is the author of the best selling book Selling Against the Goal: How Corporate Sales Professionals Generate the Leads they Need. Under Ms. Lee's direction her organization has assisted sellers in increasing referrals more than 328% in just 7 weeks, penetrating SMB markets in just 6 weeks, driving new client acquisition more than 31% year to year, and increasing annual revenue. .