By Peter Gracey, COO and Co-Founder, AG Salesworks
I’ve been doing some call monitoring recently and it has opened my eyes to an opportunity to really help my team pass more leads that close.
We believe you can break qualification questions into two buckets. The first bucket, which we will call “The Pitch,” will get you to a passed lead and an introductory call for your sales rep but not much else.
By Peter Gracey, COO and Co-Founder, AG Salesworks
I’ve been doing some call monitoring recently and it has opened my eyes to an opportunity to really help my team pass more leads that close.
We believe you can break qualification questions into two buckets. The first bucket, which we will call “The Pitch,” will get you to a passed lead and an introductory call for your sales rep but not much else.
The second bucket, “The Pass,” will not only get you a passed lead, but also help ensure that you have an opportunity in the forecast after that first call.
The Pitch. When telequal reps adopt this mindset, they ask questions designed to get a prospect to answer in a manner that will allow the telequal rep to drop a “benefit” on them. Subconsciously, reps that ask these types of questions are looking to pitch; they aren’t concerned enough with “The Pass.”
Here is an example:
Telequal Rep: “Is there interest in connecting with your clients on a deeper level through the use of social media engagement?”
Prospect: “Yes, it is something that we are looking into.”
Telequal Rep: “Great, that is something we excel at through our BLAH BLAH platform.”
This is a logical approach to some degree. It encourages prospects to express interest, and the rep can explain how your company can meet and exceed their expectations. However, it’s not the right way to do it. The conversation isn’t substantial enough. This telequal rep is setting the table for a one-way conversation: They are going to do the talking and the prospect is going to listen.
One-sided communication will get someone to agree to a follow up just to get you to leave them alone, but it doesn’t build the foundation for a healthy sales process and eventual partnership.
The Pass. When telequal reps adopt this mindset, their objective is to get the prospect talking about what is wrong with their current universe. It is designed to allow the telequal rep to shut up and listen, which is what the job is really about.
People are more likely to buy something from you if they do most of the talking on your calls. When you take “The Pass” approach to designing your questions, you become a facilitator and a business “therapist.” You get prospects to voice the things about their current day that prevent them from reaching their goals and thus give them heartburn.
More importantly, if you press on and ensure every question you ask ties back to a pain point, then you get your prospect to map out, in their own words, exactly why they need your services.
Here is an example:
Telequal Rep: “How are you currently connecting with your clients through social media?”
Prospect: “Well, we have a Facebook presence, but we haven’t really figured out how to properly leverage it yet with our clients.”
Telequal Rep: “If you were ‘leveraging’ it better, what kind of results would you be looking for?”
The telequal rep in “The Pass” mindset never stops asking questions. He or she is thirsty for information and wants to truly understand how this prospect is doing things today, how hard it is to do it that way, and how serious they are about spending money to fix the problem.
They aren’t just asking BANT questions, as this will not provide the insight required to truly understand how to help them. They are asking pain questions designed to set the sales rep up as a savior and not just another pitchman.
I’ll admit, in my sales life I’ve been both “The Pitch” and “The Pass” kind of guy. I enjoyed them both, but taking “The Pass” mentality had a far more profound and positive effect on the size of my sales pipeline.
Peter Gracey, is the Chief Operations Officer and Co-Founder of AG Salesworks, a leading provider of high quality and fully qualified sales leads to technology companies. In his current position, Pete oversees client engagement, personnel management, business strategy, across-the-board data analysis and long-term strategic planning.
