Tuesday Marketing Notes (Number 96—September 18th , 2007)

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Extreme Qualifying: Two Steps to High Performance Qualification

by Jeff Thull, CEO and President of Prime Resource Group

For sales and marketing professionals, generating quality leads and qualifying them is one of the most critical aspects of their job. In Marketing’s rush to generate piles of new leads, quantity is frequently favored over quality. Likewise, in the eagerness of Sales to dig into a new account and make a new sale, the quantity of presentations and proposals frequently takes precedence over the quality of the prospect, and the salesperson often ends up negatively impacting their effectiveness by spending time with the wrong people. In both areas, the lack of effort on the “quality” component compounds the probability of poor sales outcomes. In this era of hyper-competition and limited resources, how can we team up to qualify and select the right prospects with whom to spend valuable time?

First, we must have the right mindset to find and qualify the prospective customer. I encourage sales and marketing professionals to consider the role model of a doctor. Thinking like a physician, recognizing the customer’s external profile and asking questions to diagnose the customer’s internal profile, will help us recognize if the prospect is truly qualified for our solution. What makes a doctor’s protocol of questions so valuable in this qualifying process is their focus on two dimensions of the customer—the external and the internal profile. The external profile refers to everything that can be determined by looking at the customer from the outside, e.g. size of company, industry, number of employees, etc. Another word for the external profile is “demographics.” The internal profile refers to how they think and what they are actually experiencing.

Similar to a doctor, the “qualifying” process begins by developing specific diagnostic marketing campaigns that are directed at specific profiles. You’ll notice brochures and ads are most often directed at specific external profiles. You’ll also notice that the content of those campaigns is focused on the physical symptoms the patient may be experiencing in the absence of the medical solution. In other words, the lead is generated by the patient beginning the qualification process by recognizing they have the symptoms of the problem to be solved. They are more than “interested” in the solution because they recognize they have the disease. They are “pre-qualified.”

The lead is then passed on to the salesperson who continues the qualifying process by verifying the external profile and asking diagnostic questions related to the symptoms the customer has acknowledged, the internal profile. It is what we like to call “extreme qualifying” because we are qualifying based on the physical symptoms of the prospect (their reality) rather than only their external characteristics. When Marketing uses the external profile as the focus and sets the starting point for extreme qualification, they can suggest the ideal internal profile to diagnose for and prepare the sales team to continue the extreme qualification process. All too often, Marketing sets too wide of a net with the external profile and Sales proceeds with their pitch without going much beyond the external qualifiers. It is the internal profile that will provide the most telling information and will differentiate the salesperson in the eyes of the prospect.

In traditional qualifying, we have been trained early on to “create interest” with prospects, however one of the problems with creating interest in your product or solution is you can easily create interest with someone who is not qualified to buy. It is like a doctor who talks about open-heart surgery with a 22-year-old professional athlete. It may be interesting and even intriguing to the athlete, but it is not likely to result in any open-heart surgery being performed. For the sales professional this translates to time invested with prospects that are not qualified to buy.

So what are the “symptoms” you will look for to begin your “extreme qualifying” approach? First, focus on two or three of your most unique and valuable features and ask yourself the questions, “What would my prospect be experiencing in the absence of this feature?” “What are the physical signs or symptoms that they would notice in their business?” As you can see, this is not about presenting benefits; it is about verifying that your prospect is at risk because of the physical symptoms they are experiencing and the consequences they will experience in the absence of your solution.

Extreme qualifying is qualifying according to the internal profile of the customer recognizing the reality of symptoms that represent real risk to the customer. When you generate leads that recognize these symptoms, and you’ve prepared your sales organization with diagnostic questions to dig deeper into the symptoms, your customer will likely see these risks as real and substantial enough to take action and invest money to eliminate them. You will then be in a unique competitive situation and will provision your sales organization to create strong relationships as valued business advisors to your customers.

About the Author:

Jeff Thull is a leading-edge strategist and valued advisor for executive teams of major companies worldwide.  As President and CEO of Prime Resource Group, he has designed and implemented business transformation and professional development programs for companies like Shell Global Solutions, 3M, Microsoft, Siemens, Citicorp, IBM, Raymond James, and Georgia-Pacific, as well as many fast track, start-up companies.  He has gained the reputation for being a thought leader in the arena of sales and marketing strategies for companies involved in complex sales.

Thull is a compelling, entertaining and thought-provoking keynote speaker with a track record of over 2,500 speeches and seminars delivered to corporations and professional associations worldwide. He is the author of the best selling books Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes are High,The Prime Solution: Close the Value Gap, Increase Margins, and Win the Complex Sale, and Exceptional Selling: How the Best Connect and Win in High Stakes Sales.  Thull is also a columnist with Inc.com and his articles are published in hundreds of business and trade publications.