Getting to ‘No’

I remember my boss at Digital Equipment Corp. once awarded me the “bulldog”. It was a bronze casting of a bulldog meant to be proudly displayed on my desktop. It was recognition for sinking my teeth into an unqualified prospect and holding on until the prospect submitted to my will and bought.

That was then. This is now. Today that kind of behavior should be punished, not rewarded. Maybe even back then. We made the sale, but at what cost?

Once I had committed to that deal, I spent tons of time booking appointments, preparing proposals, building presentations, and making customer visits. Very time consuming and expensive. I’ve since decided that this is work that should be done only if there’s a real need and a good chance of winning a profitable deal.

Everything you do to generate leads and close deals is hard work. Don’t waste it. Get to ‘No’.

There’s a substantial difference in your mental attitude when you’re going for a ‘Yes’ versus when you’re going for a ‘No’.

When you go for a ‘Yes’:

• You’re trying to get an appointment.
• You’re trying to get approval for your proposal.
• You’re trying to close the deal or close for the next step.
• Your posture is one of a supplicant.

When you go for a ‘No’:

• You cross prospects off your list faster.
• You never do proposals that have no chance of leading to a sale.
• You’re looking for reasons not to waste time with loser deals.
• Your posture is one of confidence that what you sell is of value.

This doesn’t mean you throw out every lead that isn’t perfect and ready to decide today.

What it does mean is that you prioritize your efforts, and you make prospects show you why they deserve your sales time and sales resources.

It’s so much better to deal only with qualified prospects. Prospects who have pain and are actively seeking help.

Most companies don’t qualify leads well enough. In B2B, prospects are professional buyers, with budgets and business problems to solve. If you can help them, chances are good they’ll buy. You have a right to ask questions to determine if the opportunity is appropriate for your organization.

When you embark on a demand generation program, you need to qualify the leads that come in. Initially, they should be qualified to determine whether they belong in the sales funnel at all. Criteria to determine this:

• the prospect is the decision maker, a strong influencer, or has access to the decision maker or influencer
• the company is doing well and can make money available for the purchase (or, in some cases, is doing poorly and may go to great lengths to get funding for the right project)
• pain has been detected, and your product may solve their pain
• they have expressed interest in your product, and
• they project a purchase within a year.

If they don’t qualify at this point, discard them. On average, you’ll lose about 20% of the leads generated. You’ll save a lot of time and effort by not pursuing leads that will never close.

Then it’s time to qualify for “sales-ready” leads. It’s imperative that Marketing, Sales and the C-suite all agree on the criteria that must be met to qualify a lead as “sales-ready”. Here’s an example of sales-ready lead criteria:

• the prospect is the decision maker, or is a strong influencer and can get you access to the decision maker
• budget is available, or the person can make budget available
• pain has been verified, and your product can genuinely solve their pain
• they have expressed interest in a sales meeting to explore a solution to their need, and
• they project a purchase within three months.

You can loosen or tighten the scoring criteria based on whether you want more or fewer leads to hand to your salesforce. On average, 20% of the leads generated will be qualified as sales-ready. Hand them off to the appropriate sales contacts immediately.

You’ve discarded 20% and handed 20% off to your salesforce. That means you have 60% of the leads generated still in the sales funnel. They’re qualified as leads, but they’re not sales-ready. They need to be nurtured.

The way to build a relationship with these prospects is to let them educate themselves. B2B lead nurturing consists of making informative content (some subset of whitepapers, seminars, case studies, podcasts, webinars, demos, etc.) available to the prospect. The goal is to earn their permission to stay in touch and progressively deepen the relationship so that when the prospect does become sales-ready, they’ll want to engage with your firm. You’re top of mind when they’re ready to buy, and the conversation won’t be centered on price, because you’ve become a trusted advisor.