When it comes to qualifying sales leads, more doesn't always mean better. Notably, if the sales leads are not qualified. You could spend hours each day and still only manage to close a measly 1-3 leads out of a hundred.

So, how does a B2B lead qualification process work? What systems can you employ to increase the effectiveness of your qualification process? And, most importantly, how is the perfect qualifying process different from the one you currently use?

The important thing is knowing that the sales lead qualification process is all about knowing which questions to ask and whom to ask them.

Qualifying sales leads means the same thing in every context: determining if the subject meets predetermined criteria or ‘qualifies' for it. For example, to qualify a lead is to determine how likely the lead will develop into a sale.

The whole point of sales lead qualification is to reduce the time a sales representative spends talking to potential customers who will not turn into buyers. Otherwise known as ‘chasing leads.'

Sales qualification helps weed out the tire kickers by using a framework that allows the sales rep to process a lead and determine its sales potential. Narrowing down what B2B sales lead qualification frameworks you want to leverage each day when qualifying prospects is the biggest hurdle to success here.

For example, if you are selling insurance products, a qualified lead would be someone who owns the item you're selling insurance for. You'd be surprised to learn about the amount of time sales reps spend chasing leads that are not even related to the products or services they are selling.

Success in sales often comes down to spending more time with buyers who are a good fit and ready to buy.

The ratio of the number of sales a rep closes from all the leads they have is called the close ratio. So when you are looking at improving the number of sales you make from your leads, you have to improve your close ratio.

This is different from the conversion ratio, which measures how many leads you secure from the number of people exposed to your marketing efforts.

The most straightforward answer is to save yourself time and effort. Less time spent on disqualified leads means more time spent on qualified ones. That means more conversions or sales. Successful sales people spent more time with decision makers, who use lead scoring and have a defined sales process.

The success of your attempts at qualifying sales leads depends on how effectively you can measure your leads' responses against your qualification criteria. We will discuss different qualification frameworks later but let's look at what they all share.

All lead qualification systems use carefully designed qualifying questions to understand how well a lead matches your qualification criteria. Common qualifying questions include:

I have highlighted the most critical part of each question. Your qualifying questions have to sound as natural as possible to elicit helpful information from the lead. After all, why would anyone share their business problems if the questions like you're trying to manipulate them?

Depending on where the sales lead is within the funnel, the leads are given different names.

A. Marketing Qualified Lead

When your marketing department grabs an email address or phone number, they call them Marketing Qualified Lead or an MQL. An MQL has been exposed to your marketing initiatives and has shown interest in either purchasing your product or service or acquiring more information about it. An MQL is generally someone who has only make initial contact with your business and so often they are not quality leads at this point.

B. Sales Qualified Lead

Next, when sales teams speak to a MQL and ask them qualifying questions, they are then relabeled as Sales Qualified Leads or an SQL. These leads are likely to become customers because they have met your desired lead qualification criteria and they've had their long term pain points identified.

C. Disqualified Lead

The last type of sales lead is called a Disqualified Lead which is equally important as the previous two. Disqualified sales leads are the one type of lead that you want to eliminate from your sales pipeline. A disqualified sales lead is different from an Unqualified Lead. An unqualified lead is a prospect that has not shown enough interest at the marketing stage to be sent to the sales team.

Another thing all prospecting frameworks share is the concept that leads qualification is not an event but an ongoing process. The discovery call might not provide ample time or rapport needed to ask all the questions for sales lead qualification. More often than not, several calls and engagements are required to qualify a lead properly. The process goes through different levels of lead qualification.

Let's take a look at the different levels of potential qualification within a buyer's organization.

When you start to qualify across an entire organization, you'll begin to consider things like company size, industry, customer base, and region.

For example, if your business sells hydraulic lifts, you will want to know if they are in a region your engineers can visit and install them.

Example organizational level qualification questions include:

Moving on, you would want to know whether the prospect wants your product or service. If they want it, can they afford it? And finally, when are they most likely to make a purchase? Opportunity level lead qualification is all about identifying a lead's pain point. We call it a pain point because they are more likely to want a product that removes that pain.

If you are selling Search Engine Marketing services, you must speak to somebody interested in their business's online presence. Their pain point might be that their turnover has dramatically dropped after a Google Search update. This identification of a specific pain point is the information you need to qualify this prospect.

Opportunity level sales qualification questions include:

Stakeholder sales qualification questions are all about making sure you talk to the right person within the company. Your prospect must have influence over the decision-making process of their organization to the extent where it can help you close the sale.

You don't want to spend time going through organization and opportunity level qualifications only to find out that the person will pass on the information for someone else to get back to you.

Although, this isn't precisely a dead-end scenario either. If you can ask the right questions, you can create a map of your lead's organization, ultimately leading you to the decision-maker.

It's pretty straightforward if your ideal customers are individuals or owner-managed businesses, as you will be speaking to the decision-maker from the start. But if it's a more prominent company, you will need to ask questions like:

The three levels of qualification that we have discussed so far are all you need when developing questions for your qualification framework. However, as there are many variables here, a pre-built Qualification Framework could make your qualification process more efficient.

Your industry, the type of leads you talk to, and the service or product you sell will determine the qualification framework and sales process you will ultimately use.

The three most widely used lead qualification frameworks are BANT, CHAMP and MEDDIC.

Bant has four elements of qualification and is a slight twist on the classic “budget authority need” method of lead scoring:

Although they aren't related, CHAMP is similar to the BANT framework in the way it incorporates Money, Authority, and Need, but it builds on the Time section of BANT by taking into account where your product or service lies in the list of priorities of your lead.

The MEDDIC framework is similar to the revised MEDDPICC qualification framework. It takes a different approach to lead qualification by thoroughly looking at the decision-making process and separating it into Decision Criteria and Decision Process. The framework goes a step further in its thoroughness by looking for influence in non-decision making but influential individuals it calls Champions.

Years of experience from various sales experts and successful sales reps have blessed us with enough insights to identify the red and green flags that can appear when qualifying sales leads.

The following positive signs of sales qualification and red flags are easy to spot when you know them:

The sales lead qualification process revolves around asking your leads questions. These questions are designed to help a sales rep determine if the lead has any potency for a sale.

Seems pretty simple, right? Most salespeople fall into issues when qualifying their customer when their prospects get uneasy with answering questions all of their rapid fire questions.

Potential customers can feel uneasy because they:

If your prospect isn't interested in what you're pitching then, congratulations! You can confidently disqualify that lead.

Remember your sales leads are people, and people want to be heard. So make the qualification process easy for them so they get comfortable with divulging crucial information about their business. You need this information to either qualify or disqualify the buyer.

Absolutely! Think of the sales lead qualification process as a feasibility study of your leads. The purpose is to determine how feasible pursuing a lead is so those leads that do not meet set criteria do not consume resources that can otherwise be spent on leads that do. Therefore, disqualifying leads is as important as qualifying them.

The top salespeople in the world are proactive about disqualifying poor or even average sales leads and so you should be too.

Qualifying sales leads is easy, just ask the right questions at the right time to the right people. The other half of the sales qualification formula is analyzing your prospect's answers and knowing what to ask next.

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