Limited hours in the day and an unstable economy make it imperative that you qualify your prospects ahead of time. Spending valuable time, money and resources on a deal that will never happen is a waste of your selling potential. Sales trainer Tessa Stowe has put together a list of seven reasons why you must dutifully qualify your prospects – your closing ratio will rise as a result!

Here are seven reasons why you must be zealous about putting your prospects through a qualification process before you sell to them:

Qualifying ensures that you only sell to people who are going to buy.
By qualifying you can determine if your prospect is going to buy and, more importantly, if they are going to buy now. By qualifying, you avoid wasting time, money and resources on selling to prospects who do nothing.

Qualifying tells you where to focus.
On which prospects do you spend your valuable time? Qualifying gives you that answer. By qualifying, you identify high probability opportunities and these are the ones you need to focus on.

Qualifying enables you to win more sales.
As a result of qualifying, you only sell to prospects who are going to buy and you only focus on high probability opportunities. Just by having this focus on high probability opportunities, you increase your probability of success, if that makes sense.

Qualifying speeds up your sales and results in a shorter sales cycle.
As a result of qualifying, you will find out the reason why your prospect should act now. You find out their 'compelling event.' When you find out your prospect's compelling event, they will be motivated to take action now. They will be motivated to buy your solution now rather than later and your sales cycle will be reduced as a consequence.

Qualifying reduces your wasted costs.
If you routinely sell to people who are not going to buy or have a low probability of buying from you, then you are wasting a lot of time money and resources. By qualifying, you stop these wasted costs.

Qualifying enables you to choose who you want to become your client.
Do you have a client that you wish was not your client? They require so much time and energy that they really are not worth having. Also more importantly they distract you from serving your ideal clients and from winning new business. With qualifying, you will identify these non-ideal clients straight way.

Qualifying attracts prospects.
If you share your qualification process with your prospects, they will see that you are a professional and selective about whom you have as your client. When you become selective about who you work with, people want to be 'selected.' It's human nature. Your prospects will be trying to sell you on why you should sell to them! Even if you both agree that you are not a good fit for them right now, this process will leave them feeling impressed by you and they'll probably refer others to you.

“Right now make it an unbreakable rule that you will zealously qualify prospects and you will only ever sell to qualified prospects who will be ideal customers,” says Stowe. “So find, learn and implement a sales qualification process straight away and watch the impact on your sales results.”

Tessa Stowe teaches small business owners and recovering salespeople simple steps to turn conversations into clients without being sales-y or pushy. Her FREE monthly Sales Conversation newsletter is full of tips on how to sell your services by just being yourself. Sign up now at www.salesconversation.com.