524: How to Qualify your Leads

Hey y'all Brent Perry with Business on Purpose.  Let's talk about qualifying leads in your business.  In an article written in Business News Daily, Max Freedman writes, "Lead generation is important, but qualifying your leads to determine which ones are worth pursuing can save you time and money." Now I don't know about you, but saving time and money when it comes to your business should be a priority as an owner. I spent over a year working outside sales for a company that sells aviation wiring and cables. We sold to the military, major airlines,  mom and pop hangers that flew Cessnas... if you have a vehicle that flew, we sold to you. I got to go to some pretty cool places over that year... Space X out in California, American Airlines HQ in Texas, Salt Lake City to see some guys who are doing amazing work on developing defense technology for the airforce. Literally, we went all over.  Now, we would usually plan a trip around 1-2 of our biggest customers or suppliers in that area we were traveling to. But we couldn't go anywhere unless we had 9-10 visits set up for that week. But even a step furthers, my direct boss would make us submit our visits a few weeks in advance, so he could make sure... you guessed it. These were qualified leads. He didn't want us traveling week in and week out if we weren't coming back with something that benefited the company. A new supplier, a new customer, a new point of contact at a company that we were trying to crack. Our trips were all justified because we had the take the time to qualify our leads. In his book, Business Made Simple, Donald Miller notes that a qualified lead meets the following three criteria…   They have a problem your product or service will solve They are able to afford your product or service They have the authority to buy your product or service Let me read those again…   They have a problem your product or service will solve They are able to afford your product or service They have the authority to buy your product or service So the question is, are you qualifying the leads in your business? If not, you may be wasting some of your time, energy, and money chasing down any lead that pops up.  Miller goes on to write,  "Create a list of criteria that qualifies leads so you can move them into a story that solves their problem and changes their lives." If your business already has a list of criteria, great! I would say make sure you are reviewing that list once a quarter or so to make sure you are up to date. If you currently don't have that list readily available for yourself or your employees, that's a good place to start. Let's make sure we are going after the right people. A little work on the front end will save your time, energy, and money in the long run.  Thanks for listening.  If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our Podcast, and/or our YouTube channel.