6 Key Sales Opportunity Qualifiers

Do you ever lose opportunities because an executive you’ve never met says “no”?

Do opportunities seem to go on and on like a death march?

Have buyers gone to the end of a sell cycle with you, only to back out?

Well, these are a few examples of signs that opportunities that have been misqualified.  Here are 6 key questions you should ask yourself early and often:

1. Have you identified a clear CRITICAL BUSINESS ISSUE (CBI) driving the need to act?
2. Have you developed a clear vision of a SOLUTION in the mind of your prospect?  With that, can you establish a clear advantage over your competition?
3. Have you PROVEN to the satisfaction of your prospect that you can provide the capabilities that make up the solution?
4. Have you gained access to POWER and other members of the buyer’s decision making team?
5. Does the buyer have a clear sense of the VALUE the solution brings?  Does the VALUE meet their ROI requirements?
6. Have you and the buyer agreed on a clear ACTION PLAN defining the steps leading to a buying decision?

These six qualifiers can be summarized in the equation below, where if any item gets a score of zero or close to zero, the probability of a win is in turn zero or close to zero.

If you are not satisfied with any of the answers then your opportunity is at risk, and I would recommend taking the appropriate action(s) with your buyer to rectify the problem, and there are two possible outcomes:

• If you are successful then you will have an opportunity that is back on track.
• If you are not successful, do the math!  In all likelihood you should disqualify the opportunity.