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Qualify People Out to Increase Sales

As counter intuitive as it may seem, the first job of sales is to eliminate people who are not interested or qualified to do business with you. The quicker you can do that, the more time and money you'll have available to focus on more productive sales opportunities.

This advice has never been more appropriate than it is today. With money tight and budgets shrinking, all business owners must make their “best effort” to eliminate prospects that are not qualified, quickly.

Start by analyzing the traits of your best clients

Who are they? Create a profile of the people who buy from you.

What do they value about the service you provide? Answer the question, why do they buy.

What industry niche(s) are they in? The best way to view your most profitable niches is by SIC code.

Where are they located geographically? If your best clients are in your local community, it doesn’t make sense to expand into regional markets.

If you don’t know the answers to these questions you’ll have to research and ask your clients directly. Understanding your best clients is key to finding more people just like them.

Now that you know who you’re looking for, go on a mission to get rejected

Set a NO goal. For every appointment you want to set, realize that it will take about four times that many NO’s to reach the goal.

Make contact with people who are most like the clients you enjoy working with now. Tell these new potential buyers about the value you provide. Then ask permission to communicate.

An eBook, White Paper or Article of interest to your niche are all great tools to open a conversation.

Follow up your initial communication to find out what they thought about the ideas you shared. 

For the people who have no interest, qualify them out quickly and take them off of your follow up and marketing list. You'll save hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars from this one step alone.

Before qualifying out, make sure you understand your prospects situation

Sometimes you’re reaching people at a bad time. They may be open to your ideas, but not right now. If that’s the case, find out a better time to have the conversation.

The script I like is, “Does saying no now mean that the timing is just not right and I should check back later or this is something that is not interesting to you ever.”

More often than not, timing is an issue. Checking back later reaps great results.

Remember that for every appointment you want to set, you’ll need four times that many NO’s. Give it a try.

Qualifying prospects out is both an emotionally liberating and cost effective way to move sales forward quickly.

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