Anatomy of Qualifying a Teleprospecting Call
As a manger of client operations part of my responsibility is to help train our business development reps. In one of our classes, Qualification Training, we go through the process involved in a Teleprospecting call and the qualifying information that needs to be attained. Anyone who has been in sales knows that in order to convert a particular conversation to a “qualified lead” you need to uncover their pains and needs, budget, decision making process and time estimate for closing. Here are a few tips from this training session that I feel have been particularly helpful, not for me, but other members of our team as well:
Don’t be afraid to close your prospect earlier in conversations. If you look at the process from an unbiased outsider perspective it makes sense. You introduce yourself to your prospect; explain the reason for your call and transition with an open ended question where they’re at least required to respond with a full sentence. If you haven’t asked anything where they have an out to say just “Yes” or “No”, then you’re doing well. You’re doing even better if you can get them to talk about what technology they are currently using and what their compelling pains and needs are. The moment you determine that they fit your clients profile requirements is when I suggest you look to your calendar and offer up a couple times for that person to connect with your product specialist or outside sales rep.
The reason I feel this method is effective is because once they express interest in your technology, as well as provide you with dates and times for a follow up call, it’s clear you’ve gained some level of trust with them. Now you can feel less pressured and more relaxed when you ask for just a couple minutes longer to ask some questions for your sales rep. This is when you can get into their Decision making process, their Budgeting cycle, and their Evaluation/Purchasing schedule. However, explain your role early in the conversation and secure a level of trust before getting into the critical information like Budget, Authority and Time frame. Put yourself in the prospects shoes – imagine if you had a complete stranger spark a conversation about a specific technology and then ask numerous questions about your business processes, your pains and needs relative to his/her solution and who makes decisions about what and when? – All without that person really even expressing what their role or job is.
What if they commit to a follow up date/time but don’t have the few extra minutes to answer your questions? This can happen. After all, they too are hard workers with a schedule to keep. My advice would be to tell them that you understand they are busy and that you will email them the questions you need answered. Politely ask that they spend a few minutes and provide a response before the scheduled call. I think it’s a good idea to note somewhere at the end of that same email that you’ll follow up directly by phone should you not hear back before the time of the call. To my surprise, when I switched to this tactic, I found the number of leads and quality of leads had risen. This process made me feel more at ease when asking the qualifying questions and more effective at obtaining the information.
If you have you felt like you’ve been getting brushed off when trying to close your prospects at the tail end of a conversation, give this method a try and see what happens.