Ever felt like someone was asking for too much before they actually pay you?
They want to know exactly what the solution is going to look like. They might even be asking for spec work ☠️. And then they go and delay the project!
It’s easy to roll your eyes and write them off as time wasters, but what are you doing on your part to stop this situation from occurring? Because it will occur.
If this is occurring regularly, then you have a qualification issue.
You already do qualification; you just may not have a strategy for it.
And to grow as an agency, you need to get one.
The results of great qualification are that you will win more work:
- You will only go for work that can be won
- You will spend more time giving those prospects more love
What is Qualification?
Qualification is the art and science of choosing who and what to work on.
It’s a systematised way of selecting projects and clients.
Qualification is your tool to set the parameters of the sales process and to keep those parameters flexible enough to handle run-of-the-mill enquiries and your dream client.
On an operational level, it ensures the efficient use of you and your team’s time as it makes sure that any intensive activities like bid writing or workshops are used on deals that you have a high chance of winning.
On a growth level, it objectively match-makes you with the opportunities that will make you money and take you forward.
How should you qualify?
You should qualify for three things:
- They are going to buy
- They are likely to buy from you
- You want them as a client
1. They are going to buy
Firstly, a baseline qualification as to whether work is going to happen. You need to be efficient with your time.
This is a solved problem and you’ll find many frameworks for how to score leads.
Choose the one that suits you and then adapt it for your business. A good example is BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline).
- Budget checks if the prospect can actually afford what you’re selling.
- Authority figures out if you’re talking to the right person who can make the call on buying.
- Need looks at whether your product or service actually solves a real problem for them.
- Timeline is about when they’re planning to make a move or get something in place.
Develop a script with questions which get to the bottom of each of these issues and score each prospect.
Don’t invest extra effort until you have a good overview of each, then spend your time on the high-scoring ones.
2. They are likely to buy from you
A couple of things that BANT misses out are ways of gauging how excited they are to work with you and what kind of competition you face.
Who else they’re considering and do you have a competitive advantage.
Good signs are when they’ve been referred to you, have been a long-term follower, or there is some kind of existing relationship.
Bad signs include them talking to 10 other agencies or they won’t talk to you before getting a quote.
Look back over the deals you won. What constitutes an engaged prospect in your business?
Add something which covers this to your scoring.
3. You want them as a client
Here qualification gets more nuanced. Rather than a tool for efficiency, this becomes a strategy for growth.
In an ideal world, we have a pipeline full of potential projects that have passed the ‘are they going to buy from you’ check.
We now want to select the ones that are:
- Most profitable.
- Have the most sophisticated, progressive client.
- Doing the type of work that stretches you exactly where you want to go.
There’s another framework here (sound the ‘too many frameworks’ klaxon): Fun, fame, fortune.
When assessing whether this is the right client for you, it’s will this be enjoyable, high profile, and profitable. If it ticks all 3 boxes then great. You can score against these too.
However, you need a way of qualifying that’s flexible.
Sometimes you will:
- Have an upcoming gap between projects that you want to fill
- Have just hired and want more potential work
- Be experiencing a downturn in leads
Your current context will change how strict or loose you are around leads. Which of the qualification criteria will you adjust? A less profitable project, a project you aren’t going to shout about, or just something that’s a bit dull?
Work out the consequences of each and be intentional about what you are going to let through the gates.
Putting it into action
To qualify, you need to gather information on a client. As one of the points of qualification is to save time, the process of information gathering can’t be too laborious.
Work on your tactics for qualifying on your site, in your emails, and on your calls.
Here’s how I did it.
On website
We didn’t mention money on our site because, as a design agency, it was very hard to establish the cost of the solution before we knew the problem.
We signalled price by showing previous projects and highlighting effort and outcomes. We showed that we weren’t a budget option.
Desk research
I then looked up the company on LinkedIn before deciding what to do. I mentally did a fun, fame, fortune check to see if we should:
- Arrange a call
- Ask for more info
Some leads you just want to get on a call with no matter what they want. Others instinctively you think look like a potential waste of time.
The iffy ones got an email outlining the type of work we did, the budget, and amount of time we needed to see. Then they got parked until we got a reply.
On the call(s)
Now the fun part: qualifying face to face.
These you need to practice and prepare questions for. It can feel like you are probing for personal information. As a Brit, I’ve had politeness drilled into me. You don’t ask a lady her age*, you don’t ask someone how much they earn, and you don’t ask a stranger their project’s budget.
**I’m more progressive than this. I don’t ask anyone their age.
There is also a sense of showing your cards here. Whoever says their amount first weakens themselves in a negotiation.
Whether it’s awkwardness or negotiation strategy, you want to come up with a way of asking about it, or responding if you are asked.
Here’s my favourite: “How much do you think you’ll spend on this over the next 18 months?” This takes the focus off the budget on the table and doesn’t directly ask what’s in it for me. It also finds out how organised and mature they are. Is this a valuable thing for them? Are they going to potentially be a long-term client?
Or if asked, I’d say: “Our projects start from £X; our largest clients spend around £XXX a year.” This gives them a ballpark that they can’t assume will be their price and doesn’t anchor them low.
On the call, I’m also looking to establish if it’s going to be good work and get a sense of the other qualification factors. If there’s a hint that they had done design already and just needed it to look nicer (i.e., not very strategic work), then I’d dig deeper here. If there’s an urgency, then I ask about the exact timeline.
Although qualification continues throughout the sales cycle, this opening stage—from enquiry through to the end of the first call—should give you everything you need to know. If it doesn’t, you need to call that out before progressing it through the pipeline.
The price of being too strict
We would be often told by leads that every other agency was sending them a questionnaire before speaking to them.
We were winning just by picking up the phone.
Get the balance right between avoiding time wasters and appearing impersonal. This balance will change depending on your phase of growth. I always erred towards meeting people.
Because, to be honest I loved speaking to people. Every conversation was a chance to hone my pitch and listen to potential customers
People spend a lot of effort sending cold email to unqualified contacts. This is a warm connection, someone that’s reached out to you. Make the most of it.
If your qualification is too structured you are missing out on the people that don’t know which questions to ask to start. Those projects can be the big one as you get your hands on a complex problem that you can help define and solve.
Going further
Once you have started with qualification, you’ll see how it relates to:
- Niching and positioning - qualification really starts in your marketing
- Pricing - the constant headache of when to say how much you cost
- Ethics and values - making sure you and your team are proud of this work