HOW TO QUALIFY B2B HOW TO QUALIFY B2B LEADSLEADS

PROBLEMPROBLEM

• 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 SYSTEMTHREE STEP SYSTEM

• Here’s the three step system we recommend– Inquiry Screening

– Lead Qualification

– Sales Opportunity Development

INQUIRY SCREENINGINQUIRY 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 QUALIFICATIONLEAD QUALIFICATION

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

Lead QualificationLead 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 SALES OPPORTUNITY DEVELOPMENTDEVELOPMENT

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

Sales Opportunity DevelopmentSales 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.

SummarySummary

• 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.