James 1:19

James 1:19

"Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger."

Christian Based Selling:

​As sales reps we are aware we need to ask questions to qualify an opportunity.  Too often, however, we stop asking questions when we discover a problem that our solution can address.  We then start to tell the client about our solution and how it has worked for our customers.  We are confused when the client fails to respond to our follow up calls or emails or selects another vendor.  What happened?

We need to ask the right questions to understand the full context of the problem or issue.  There are countless sales methodology books that cover this topic but  qualifying boils down to asking questions to identify the following:

• The problem
• The problem's impact on the business

• The problems impact on your contact

We ask questions to answer the following:

1. Do they need to solve the problem?
2. If so, by when?  Why?
3. Will they spend money to solve the problem?
4. Do they have budget?  
5. Are you talking with the right person in terms of the decision maker?
6. What are they looking for in a solution?

We need to ask the tough questions upfront to determine the probability to win the business.  In doing so we need to make sure we listen to what our contact is really telling us versus what we want to hear.  The biggest risk to our productivity as sales professionals is chasing unqualified deals.  Qualify the risk and the opportunity and communicate both internally so that your management is aware you do not suffer from rose colored glasses.    

What questions do you ask to qualify?  Have you spent time chasing unqualified deals?