Qualifying your sales leads: 6 easy steps

All sales leads should have a data profile, where all the information you need to communicate with a lead is held. From their name and business, to contact number and email address, the more each profile contains, the easier it will be to contact your pipeline prospects and track them throughout their buyer journey. Even details like postal address, working hours and additional BANT qualifying information, all help in understanding your lead and tailoring your approach.

Creating a data profile alerts you quickly to what areas of qualification data you’re missing, and what details you’ll need to ask for on your next communication. Some CRMs help you build the right data profiles for enrichment, and can even link them to your lead scoring model. Data drives so much of business success; without it, you would rarely close a successful sale.

So many sales teams have a structured qualification process, but very few have a proper system for recording answers and building vital data profiles, inevitably causing problems further down the line. For example, if an emergency takes you away from work for a day and you’re unable to keep your sales appointments, would you expect your prospects to wait until your return? You may completely lose sales opportunities. It makes sense for the meeting to be kept by a colleague, to ensure the sales pipeline continues moving.

But, how can they pick this lead account up without access to their data profile and valuable qualifying information? Ensure all vital information can be easily communicated between team members. The lead must always come first, so ensure all the detail linking to their lead account is used on every call and for every communication – no matter who they’re from.