Qualifying leads

One important part of making the closing process work is to categorize leads in two different qualities.

There are two levels of lead qualification :

Marketing qualified lead (MQL)

This league has expressed interest through a marketing channel. Generally, you know this lead as self-selected eligibility for whatever you’re selling.

Example of a marketing qualified lead, are people who fill out the form to download a whitepaper, or people who have spent a considerable amount of time on your website. Leave the scoring is a useful tool to qualify someone’s interested in your product; You could set the minimum number of points that qualifies that lead as someone your sales team should reach out to.

Sales qualified lead (SQL)

After someone passes the minimum requirements to be eligible to buy from you, she becomes sales qualified. Usually, the lead has had a conversation with the sales person who has confirmed that person or business is a good candidate to become your client.

The purpose of the sales qualification step is to eliminate browsers and anyone who isn’t really serious or qualified into become your customer.

Through this qualification process you want your team to categorize leads into quality levels. Oftentimes, salespeople qualified leads as A, B, C, D. This ranking helps Focus each salesperson’s energy on the leads most likely to convert.

Done manually, a salesperson can apply any number of rubrics to determining how lead ratings should be applied. Intel developed the budget, Authority, Need, and Timing method (BANT).

A salesperson could look at a lead and apply these questions to determine the quality of that lead :

Budget

Does our product or service fall within the leads ability to pay for it?

Authority

Does the person we’re talking to have the decision-making power to buy?

Need

Is there a clear need for our product or service at the lead’s organization?

Timing 

Is it the right time for the lead to convert? or will the sale happen in the future?

You can automate lead qualification with leading scoring and Predictive Analytics. Because if you start just taking some of the guesswork of the determination of ABCD status saving time and increasing each salesperson close rate in the making.